MsMpEng.exe still listed in Taskman, though Defender is di

I turned off "real time protection" by Windows Defender but I am still seeing the process MsMpEng in the process list in Task Manager. Cannot kill the process?

I will sort out virus protection in a sec but I am troubleshooting something else, and I want this resource eating monster closed for a while.

How precisely does this work... ? Why is the process still active?

I believe if you only disable real-time protection within Windows Defender it will still run all of it's various maintenance tasks in the background. If your looking to completely disable it you have to turn the app off.

The MsMpEng.exe process will run even if real time protection is turned off. This is by design. This kind of thing is pretty much universal with AV software.

Edit: Just as malware protects itself from detection and removal AV products must protect themselves from interference by malware if they are to be effective.