Windows Defender Startup Delay

I've Googled this to death and have yet to find a satisfactory explanation as to why Windows Defender even has a startup delay or a viable method to change it to Automatic. All is greyed out in Services for the program, so can't do anything there. There was one suggestion to change a value in the registry from 1 to zero, but again Windows would not allow the change.

Not a big deal... Guess I'm just a control freak...

Anyone got some sage advice on this?