How-to fix “Get-MpComputerStatus : The extrinsic Method could not be executed.”

This is how I resolved the error message “Get-MpComputerStatus : The extrinsic Method could not be executed.”, in my specific situation. In my situation, I had Windows Defender Antivirus disabled per GPO (“Turn off Windows Defender Antivirus” in Computer Configuration/Administrative Templates/Windows Components/Windows Defender Antivirus). And I wanted to enable Windows Defender in a new GPO, on a specific set of computers.

After I specifically enabled Windows Defender on that set computers (OU), by disabling the above referenced GPO setting, I could still not enable Windows Defender, start the services or get its status.

Mehh… It errored out:

Get-MpComputerStatus : The extrinsic Method could not be executed.
At line:1 char:2
+ (Get-MpComputerStatus).AMServiceEnabled
+  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : MetadataError: (MSFT_MpComputerStatus:ROOT\Microsoft\...pComputerStatus) [Get-MpComputer
   Status], CimException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : MI RESULT 16,Get-MpComputerStatus
Code language: PowerShell (powershell)

The fix? Enable Windows Defender using MpCmdRun.exe located in C:\Program Files\Windows Defender:

C:\Program Files\Windows Defender\MpCmdRun.exe -wdenableCode language: PowerShell (powershell)

And reboot.

Jan Reilink

Hi, my name is Jan. I am not a hacker, coder, developer or guru. I am merely an application manager / systems administrator, doing my daily thing at Embrace - The Human Cloud. In the past I worked for clidn and Vevida. With over 20 years of experience, my specialties include Windows Server, IIS, Linux (CentOS, Debian), security, PHP, websites & optimization. I blog at https://www.saotn.org.

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Keith
14/09/2021 15:14

Thank you Jan! Very helpful as I was also switch over to Defender on servers and didn’t want to remote to each system to manually click “Turn on” to start the Defender service.

David White
21/07/2021 15:32

Thank you! Been looking for a command to start Defender after migrating from McAfee on dozens of servers.