Windows: Disabling Data Execution Prevention

Overview

Sometimes, old code doesn't seem to work with the new Data Execution Prevention feature in Microsoft Windows.  It's easy to turn it off for non-system applications and services, but how do you do it for system components, and why would you?

Warning: Data Execution Prevention is a security feature.  Disabling DEP reduces the security of your system.

Context

On our Microsoft Commerce Server 2002 system, running on Windows Server 2003, we were getting "COM Surrogate" errors, which relate to DEP errors with the dllhost.exe system program.  Adding it to the exception list didn't solve our problem.

Solution

Thankfully, Microsoft has written an article on how to turn off DEP for an entire server.  For this case, you need to add the following option:

to your boot.ini file.

See A detailed description of the Data Execution Prevention (DEP) feature in Windows XP Service Pack 2, Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005, and Windows Server 2003 (Microsoft Support) for further information.

Versions

• Microsoft Windows Server 2003
• Microsoft Commerce Server 2002
• Also applicable to Microsoft Windows XP

Metadata

• Categories: IT Management, Security, Windows Server, Commerce Server
• Additional keywords: how to turn off DEP, disable DEP
• Technorati Tags: IT Management, Windows, Windows 2003, problem, DEP, Data Execution Prevention, Commerce Server