No gear showing and switches don't work

If you encounter a situation where your gear are not showing at load up and your switches don't work, then it is pretty much guaranteed your antivirus or Windows Defender has broken your install by removing your plugins due to a false positive security measure. You'll need to unquarantine the files.

To do so in Windows Defender:

1. Open Windows Security
2. Click on Virus & Threat Protection
3. See the Protection History Tab

Here you will find the likely quarantined file(s) that should not have been quarantined. Restore the files and you should be back up and running.