Edit: This question originally associated this freeze with windows defender, but this was not correct.
This is a notification of fixing a "generic freeze" issue on my PC that was seemingly caused by a Windows Defender error. The issue was not fixed by turning off WD Live protection and allowing it to automatically turn itself on after restarting.
Since doing a clean install of windows 10 on my laptop, I have had a quite regular system freezes. According to a MS page, it is a "generic freeze". Before the clean install, I had updated from windows 8.1 and didn't have this issue at all.
When the freeze occurs, my laptop disk light stays on, task manager cannot be opened and all windows cannot be manipulated. the mouse cursor still moves, unless I try to click a lot of things. When the freeze ends, the system catches up with all the tasks it has not completed and returns to normal. This freeze happens once or twice every hour and lasts about 20 to 30 seconds.
Opening or closing different apps will cause this freeze, but there is no certain way to trigger it.
I followed the diagnostic instructions on a number of pages and ran a number of tests. The issue persisted over clean startup, safe mode, admins and standard accounts. I ran every kind of test I could find mentioned in other threads. none of them fixed the issue. Using task manager, I saw, AFTER the freeze stopped, that the local host was at the top of the disk list.
I opened task manager in such a way that it would be visible whenever the freeze happened. I played around until I triggered the issue and this time saw that windows defender appeared at the top of the list.
I turned off the live protection. after I did this I could not re-trigger the issue. after a restart, windows defender had automatically turned the live protection back on, but I still don't seem to be able to reproduce the issue. It seems that turning Windows Defender off and back on has resolved this issue that couldn't be fixed in a host of other ways.
