[Fix] Windows Security Page Does not Open in Windows 11

After installing/upgrading to Windows 11, you may notice that the Windows Defender Security settings page can’t be opened. Nothing may happen when you open the Windows Security dashboard, or the following error may occur when you do so:

You'll need a new app to open this windowsdefender link

Look for an app in the Microsoft Store

Also, none of the windowsdefender:// protocol links work. None of the options (“View security dashboard”, “Run a quick scan”, etc) in the Windows Security tray menu work.

As a result, you’re unable to view the “Virus & threat protection”, “Account protection”, “Firewall & network protection” and other Windows Defender settings GUI.

The above error happens if the Security Health UI app (SecHealthUI.exe) is broken. The app’s official name is “Microsoft.Windows.SecHealthUI” in Windows 10 and “Microsoft.SecHealthUI” in Windows 11.

The above issue can easily be fixed by resetting or reinstalling the Windows Security Health UI app package using PowerShell.

[Fix] You’ll Need a New App to Open This Windows Defender Link

To reset/repair the Microsoft Defender Security Health UI, open PowerShell elevated (Run as administrator).

Run the following command and hit Enter:

Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.SecHealthUI -AllUsers | Reset-AppxPackage

If you see the “Deployment operation progress:” message and end up with no error message/output, it means that the command was successful. You should be able to launch the Windows Defender security settings dashboard now.

Some users may get the following error instead:

"Reset-AppxPackage : Package was not found.
Windows cannot remove Microsoft.SecHealthUI_1000.22000.1.0_neutral__8wekyb3d8bbwe because the current user does not have that package installed. Use Get-AppxPackage to see the list of packages installed.
At line:1 char:51
+ Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.SecHealthUI -AllUsers | Reset-AppxPackage
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (:) [Reset-AppxPackage], COMException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException,Microsoft.Windows.Appx.PackageManager.Commands.ResetAppxPackageCommand"

The above indicates that the package is not installed for your user account. In that case, (re)installing the Microsoft.SecHealthUI package ought to fix the problem. To do so, run the following PowerShell command:

Windows 11

add-appxpackage -disabledevelopmentmode -register ((Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.SecHealthUI -allusers).InstallLocation + '\AppxManifest.xml')

Windows 10

On Windows 10, the command-line is slightly different due to the app name difference:

add-appxpackage -disabledevelopmentmode -register ((Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.Windows.SecHealthUI -allusers).InstallLocation + '\AppxManifest.xml')

Caveat: The Security Health app package location is different in Windows 11. The paths for Windows 10 and 11 are given below:

[Windows 10 v21H2]
C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.SecHealthUI_cw5n1h2txyewy

[Windows 11 v21H2]
C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\Microsoft.SecHealthUI_1000.22000.251.0_neutral__8wekyb3d8bbwe
(The above folder name would change according to your Windows 11 Build number.)

One common mistake users do is that they run the Appxpackage command-line mentioning the explicit Windows 10 path on a Windows 11 computer. In that case, the following error would pop up:

Add-AppxPackage : Cannot find path
'C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.SecHealthUI_cw5n1h2txyewy\AppXManifest.xml' because it does not exist.
At line:1 char:1
+ Add-AppxPackage -Register -DisableDevelopmentMode "C:\Windows\SystemA ...
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : ObjectNotFound: (C:\Windows\Syst...ppXManifest.xml:String) [Add-AppxPackage], ItemNotFoundException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : PathNotFound,Microsoft.Windows.Appx.PackageManager.Commands.AddAppxPackageCommand

---

Still doesn’t work?

If the Security Health UI application package doesn’t exist on your computer, you can’t download the .appx installer package selectively from Microsoft. But you can try running the following DISM and Sfc commands to restore them.

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

sfc /scannow

(See the article Repair Windows 10 or 11 System Files Using DISM and SFC for more information.)

As a last resort, running a repair installation (aka, in-place upgrade) by running setup.exe from Windows 11 DVD/USB/ISO should automatically rectify the Windows Security Dashboard. Repair installation is suggested especially when some built-in apps, such as Calculator, Weather, Notepad, Paint, and Feedback Center go missing after the Windows 11 upgrade.