Disable and Turn Off (or Enable or Turn On) Data Execution Prevention (DEP) in Windows Vista
Data Execution Prevention (DEP) is security feature that first introduced in Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) and is included in Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005, Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1) and Windows Vista, plus future operating system. DEP is intended to prevent an application or service from executing code from a non-executable memory region. DEP is enforced by hardware technology that detects code that is running from the default heap and the stack and raises an exception to terminate the process when execution occurs, and software-enforcer that prevent malicious code from taking advantage of exception-handling mechanisms in Windows. In short, DEP perform additional checks on memory to prevent malicious code or exploits from running on the system by shut down the process once detected.
However, Data Execution Prevention may accidentally shut down legitimate process from valid applications or services, particularly third-party installers used by software developers that release their products for download through the Web, or software programs that are less commonly used. To make thing worse, DEP normally does not or fails to display or show any warning or information or acknowledgment message prompt that can let you know that DEP has shut down a process, thus causing you unaware of the reason why your setup file cannot run, or why your computer cannot start a service and etc.
Good news is that you can disable or turn off Data Execution Prevention (DEP) globally in Windows Vista. To stop the DEP protection, launch an elevated command prompt shell with administrative priviledges and credentials (log on to Windows Vista with a user account with administrator rights, and then right click on Command Prompt icon and select “Run as Administrator, or turn off UAC). Then execute the following command:
bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx AlwaysOff
If you regret your decision and now wants to enable or turn back on the DEP protection for your Windows Vista, simply use the following command instead:
bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx AlwaysOn
Share and contribute or get technical support and help at My Digital Life Forums.
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Entries (RSS)
May 23rd, 2007 08:28
BIG PROBLEMS i did like you explained and installed a new game and the DEP prevented it from running so i went to add the program to the list and its all grayed out cant select anything. so i turned it back on and restarted and the DEP is still grayed out. so i tried to restore back to before i changed the DEP and the DEP is still the same!???
June 3rd, 2007 12:11
Same problem as above poster. DEP off did a number on my system. Explorer no longer works. ICQ no longer works. Cannot turn DEP back on with the command. It says it is successful but after a reboot it is still off. So far I am unable to fix this issue and likely will have to redo my entire system to fix it. DO NOT DO THIS IT WILL FUCK UP YOUR PC!
June 7th, 2007 14:16
i have found a fix for the above problems you type in the cmd prompt the original line to turn the dep back on but you also type in
bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx optin and that will turn the dep options back on but once again thanks for nothing ower of the site that doesnt respond to any posts thats is rediculous
August 16th, 2007 22:24
After enabling AlwaysOn DEP I started getting errors when launching Firefox. I’m not certain if it was caused by a recent update or one of my Add-Ins. I’m going to need to do a complete uninstall and try again.
Besides that, however, I haven’t run into any other issues in any of my programs.
The individuals above that were having issues with Explorer crashing were probably using wonky third party shell extensions.
Their experiences show just why you should never let things integrate with your shell.
September 28th, 2007 22:28
hi! can you help me. i can’t download ym. this was the message that prompted after i click run.
Data Execution Prevention
A windows security settings has detected a problem and closed this program
Name: Yahoo! suite installer.
how can i download ym..pls. help. thank
October 25th, 2007 00:49
thx kyle for that tip.
Do not disable DEP as described in this article. It does not work and will drive you crazy.
November 13th, 2007 00:38
Yeah, screwed up my system too. Thanks to kyle it’s working again. Next time I’ll read the comments first before trusting some shitty advise of an unknown website.
November 13th, 2007 00:46
Hi sorry for any error. You can turn DEP back on to solve the issue.
November 14th, 2007 08:41
This guy is an asshole. I’m definitely not taking any advice from anyone without looking at the comments now.
Thank god for system restore though, haha.
January 1st, 2008 03:15
THIS ARTCILE IS WRONG WILL MESS UP YOUR COMPUTER.
Can I just say the Kyle is a legend. I thought that I was going to have to take my computer to the scrapheap as nothing was working. I did what he said and everythings back to normal. I owe you big time mate! And as for the guy that wrote the article - well words that nasty refuse to come out my mouth!
Dont make the same mistake as I did and spend half of new years eve begging your computer to go back to normal!
January 13th, 2008 04:28
All what you have to do to TURN ON your DEP after all is type bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx OptIn
It is very importing to type exacly this words even with big and samall letters. Afer that you can type bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx AlwaysOn
January 15th, 2008 02:36
Caution: Following these instructions also messed up my system, no programs would launch. It may be something about my system, but Kyle’s ‘OptIn’ solution also did not work to fix this for me.
The only thing that could solve my problems was to do a full system restore. I would discourage anyone from following these instructions at all.
Try at own risk!
February 28th, 2008 14:52
this works.
bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx optin
i got back my dep options. thanks kyle
March 18th, 2008 12:09
If you hav an Acer computer using the eDataSecurity Management there is an update that fixes this, there is something with the Messenger Live encryption that the DEP picks up on and that is why it closes it. The update can be found here: http://www.acerpanam.com/synapse/forms/portal20.cfm?recordid=1130&formid=3390&website=AcerPanAm.com/canada&siteid=7297&words=all&keywords=&areaid=17
PLEASE FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS!!!!!!
It did work for me. Hope that is works for you
March 21st, 2008 23:20
nothing from the above is working my pc is fuckup and all myb work and drawing is inside
i loset a lot of work from stupid DEP shit
how to take if off pleaaaseeeeee
i am loosing big money and time from it
April 21st, 2008 07:53
to reverse the problem get to a command prompt (use the windows boot disk if you have to to start recovery options) then do this
bcdedit.exe /set {default} nx AlwaysOn
beacuse once your in the recovery mode its not “current” its default you can verify its on before rebooting by typing
bcdedit.exe it will show
nx AlwaysOn
this will allow your computer to boot normally and then once back in windows do
bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx OptIn
to give you back your DEP options (aka remove the greyed out)
I hope this helps
May 9th, 2008 18:08
[...] Prevention issue with it. This morning I just get getting DEP errors every time I ran it. I could turn DEP off, but I’m not comfortable doing that for this reason, because of the previous crashes that [...]
June 2nd, 2008 08:48
Data Execution Prevention is crap - another way for someone else to exercise control over MY computer. Sure, there are malicious programs, trojans, and viri out there that could be prevented by DEP. However, it seems that the problems of having it on far outweigh the benfits.
One of the reasons I turned DEP off was that it killed Windows Movie Maker, Windows DVD Maker, and every other video program I had on my computer, not to mention that every time I tried to look at a folder that contained .AVI files, it would crash Windows Explorer. Also, lets not get me started on the damn COM SURROGATE errors…
Anyway, I lived without this little “darling” piece of Windows Code for ten years before Windows Vista came along, and if it’s going to keep on being a problem, i’ll live another ten without it!
June 5th, 2008 04:50
DEP crashed my Adobe Acrobat 8 every time I tried to do a Twain (i.e., non-WIA) scan…
After trying everything else, Adobe Support referred me to this page as a workaround to the problem.
While the explanation in the article of how to turn it off is not the clearest, I turned off the crap DEP protection, and guess what:
MY ADOBE ACROBAT 8 NOW WORKS!!!
MicroSoft’s solution (DEP) is worse than the problem…what good is DEP if it crashes legitimate programs?
June 24th, 2008 11:06
Oh yeah, bad idea!!! Do not run this command in Vista, kills system. I’m sitting here watching startup repair. YOU SUCK.
June 24th, 2008 11:17
Kyle, you are god, thank you. That fixed it.