Smart App Control Greyed Out? Here’s How to Fix It

Smart App Control is a useful way to ensure that the apps you’re installing on Windows 11 can be trusted. If you’re looking for protection and find instead that the options aren’t available, you’re no doubt looking for answers and fixes. In this article, we’ll be looking at the Smart App Control greyed out.

What Causes This Error

Smart App Control Evaluation Mode greyed out can have a few different causes. Major ones include:

• An upgrade from Windows 10 to 11 rather than a clean install of Windows 11
• You’ve somehow disabled the settings in a previous pre-configuration state
• Windows isn’t fully up to date
• Your organization or Group Policy has disabled the feature

How to Fix Smart App Control Greyed Out

Now you know some of the causes, let’s get straight into how to fix things. We’ve got some troubleshooters below:

Restart Your Machine

The quickest and easiest fix is to restart your machine. Any PC left on for too long can cause errors in Windows 11, so it’s worth a shot to investigate.

Update Windows

Perhaps the next quickest and easiest fix is to ensure your PC is fully updated. Sometimes an update is the issue. Some users reported problems with Smart App Control being greyed out after the update KB5007651. The feature is also being rolled out gradually to different users and regions.

To ensure this isn’t the case, head to “Windows Updates” in “Settings” (Win + I) and click the “Check for updates” button.

Enable Smart App Control via the Registry

If Smart App Control is greyed out, you can use the Registry to check its status. On qualified systems, changing the value can update the mode, but if it doesn’t meet Microsoft’s requirements (such as upgraded installations), Windows may ignore or reset the change. For Smart App Control, how to turn on is a matter of changing registry value data.

A word of caution: editing the Registry incorrectly can result in system instability, so follow the steps carefully.

Step 1. Open the “Run” dialog (Win + R) and type “regedit” into the box, then press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to run it as Admin.

Step 2. In the Registry Editor, navigate to the following path at the top of the window: “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\CI\Policy.” You can just copy and paste in.

Step 3. Look for the value “VerifiedAndReputablePolicyState.” If it doesn’t exist, right-click in the right pane, choose “New > DWORD (32-bit) Value,” and name it “VerifiedAndReputablePolicyState.”

Step 4. Double-click the value and select one of the available settings are:

0 = Off

1 = On

2 = Evaluation mode

Click “OK” after making any changes.

Step 5. Restart your PC and reopen Windows Security to see whether Smart App Control is available.

Note: If Smart App Control remains greyed out, your installation may not be able to enable it. Microsoft requires a clean installation (or “Reset this PC”) of Windows 11 for Smart App Control to be activated.