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Dedicated tool to update the Windows Defender definitions in the local network without client internet access via internal web server.
The WiDeRedist project was not developed to lock out or even screw Microsoft, rather than for updating Windows Defender definitions (or signatures) in internal environments that are completely separated from the internet. However, this requires at least one system with access to the internet, of course.
It consists of two components. The server-side component takes advantage of a Linux server (or alternatively BSD) which downloads the definition files and redistributes them using a web server. The client-side component on Windows uses the PowerShell to obtain and install the definition updates provided by the web server.
This project transitioned into maintenance mode. Details can be found here.
The project does not have many requirements.
- Either a Linux or BSD operating system
- Some web server such as Apache or nginx (latter has been used in development)
- The Bash shell (must be installed, but it does not have to be set as the default one)
- The following tools or packages:
curlorwgetfile(optional, used to verify the MIME type of the downloaded files)rsync
- Windows 7 with Service Pack 2 or later versions with 32-bit or 64-bit architecture
- PowerShell 2.0 or higher
In September 2024, it is still possible to manually update the Windows Defender definitions under Windows 7 using the downloadable updates from the Microsoft website, even though the support of the operating was discontinued in January 2020.
Due to the fact, that WiDeRedist downloads those files to provide and perform the definition updates, it still works on Windows 7 (at least for now) and above.
You can find the documentation containing the installation instructions and further information inside the wiki.
Please keep WiDeRedist up to date, as earlier versions may not work anymore. Usually, outdated versions should not be a problem, but in the past there was the case that WiDeRedist did not download the definition files correctly, obviously because of a change on the side of the Microsoft servers. Details can be found here.
Anyway, it is recommended to run either the server-side or client-side script manually once in a while. Since version 1.2.9 both of the scripts return if a newer version is available, unless the update check was disabled.
Any suggestions, questions, bugs to report or feedback to give?
You can contact us by sending an email to [email protected] or by opening a GitHub issue (which I would prefer if you have a GitHub account).