Data Execution Prevention

Data Execution Prevention (DEP) is a relatively new feature of both Intel and AMD hardware that is supported beginning with Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 and Windows XP Service Pack 2.

Unlike a firewall or antivirus program, DEP does not help prevent harmful programs from being installed on your computer. Instead, it monitors your programs to determine if they use system memory safely. To do this, DEP software works alone or with compatible microprocessors to mark some memory locations as "non-executable". If a program tries to run code—malicious or not—from a protected location, DEP closes the program and notifies you.

The following programs support DEP since the indicated version number:

Older versions of the same programs and all other older programs at Bersoft.com may be affected by an incompatibility with DEP.

Correcting DEP compatibility issues

For the purposes of application compatibility when DEP is set to the OptOut policy level, it is possible to selectively disable DEP for individual 32-bit applications.

The Data Execution Prevention tab in System Properties can be used to selectively disable DEP for an application.

  1. Click Start, point to Settings, click Control Panel, and then double-click System.
  2. Right-Click the MyComputer icon on Windows Desktop and then click Properties.
  3. Click the Advanced tab, and then click Settings under Performance.
  4. Click the Data Execution Prevention tab.
  5. Click Turn on DEP for all programs and services except those I select, as the image shows..
  6. Click Add, and then locate the program file that you want to fix.
  7. Click Open.
  8. Click OK, and then restart your computer.

You must be logged on as an administrator or a member of the Administrators group in order to complete this procedure. If your computer is connected to a network, network policy settings might also prevent you from completing this procedure.

Additional information

If you want to read more about about the DEP (Data Execution Prevention) feature in the Windows XP Service Pack 2 please see: