From: John on
After a hardware upgrade (to an Athlon II x2 Regcor 245 chip and new
motherboard), I'm struggling with a DEP-related problem. Running XP SP3 and
IE8. The new chip is hardware DEP capable; the old one wasn't. The DEP is
set to "protect critical programs," if I recall the wording correctly, not
to protect all programs. Although the latter setting is supposedly the
default, the "critical programs" setting showed the radio button when I
looked at the DEP settings the first time.

There is only one problem I've found (...my wife has found -- it's her
computer) so far. When she tries to log on to Web-based Hotmail using IE8,
her e-mail address is already entered for her. When she types the first
letter of her password, DEP steps in and blocks her from continuing.

I loaded Firefox, and Hotmail works normally under that browser. She's not
interested in changing browsers, though, so I'd appreciate any advice on a
fix. I do not want to change the setting back to "all programs" and enter
exceptions; I'd have to be the one to do that, and I fear having her call me
constantly to add another one. Nor do I want to turn off DEP entirely (even
if that's possible).

Sorry to sound sort of demanding in regard to what I don't want to do, but
I'd appreciate any advice or links. I've seen some references on the Web to
specific fixes for specific problems, such as certain toolbars that cause
DEP problems, but nothing that pertains to my case.

Thanks for any advice.

From: Alias on
On 8/4/2010 3:35 PM, John wrote:
>
> I loaded Firefox, and Hotmail works normally under that browser. She's
> not interested in changing browsers, though

Tell her to use it anyway. Or Chrome. If she won't, let her figure it out.

--
Alias
From: smlunatick on
On Aug 4, 2:35 pm, "John" <tito_j...(a)live.com> wrote:
> After a hardware upgrade (to an Athlon II x2 Regcor 245 chip and new
> motherboard), I'm struggling with a DEP-related problem. Running XP SP3 and
> IE8. The new chip is hardware DEP capable; the old one wasn't.  The DEP is
> set to "protect critical programs," if I recall the wording correctly, not
> to protect all programs. Although the latter setting is supposedly the
> default, the "critical programs" setting showed the radio button when I
> looked at the DEP settings the first time.
>
> There is only one problem I've found (...my wife has found -- it's her
> computer) so far. When she tries to log on to Web-based Hotmail using IE8,
> her e-mail address is already entered for her. When she types the first
> letter of her password, DEP steps in and blocks her from continuing.
>
> I loaded Firefox, and Hotmail works normally under that browser. She's not
> interested in changing browsers, though, so I'd appreciate any advice on a
> fix. I do not want to change the setting back to "all programs" and enter
> exceptions; I'd have to be the one to do that, and I fear having her call me
> constantly to add another one. Nor do I want to turn off DEP entirely (even
> if that's possible).
>
> Sorry to sound sort of demanding in regard to what I don't want to do, but
> I'd appreciate any advice or links. I've seen some references on the Web to
> specific fixes for specific problems, such as certain toolbars that cause
> DEP problems, but nothing that pertains to my case.
>
> Thanks for any advice.

Check and repair the possibly "damaged" anti-virus software.
From: Paul on
John wrote:
> After a hardware upgrade (to an Athlon II x2 Regcor 245 chip and new
> motherboard), I'm struggling with a DEP-related problem. Running XP SP3
> and IE8. The new chip is hardware DEP capable; the old one wasn't. The
> DEP is set to "protect critical programs," if I recall the wording
> correctly, not to protect all programs. Although the latter setting is
> supposedly the default, the "critical programs" setting showed the radio
> button when I looked at the DEP settings the first time.
>
> There is only one problem I've found (...my wife has found -- it's her
> computer) so far. When she tries to log on to Web-based Hotmail using
> IE8, her e-mail address is already entered for her. When she types the
> first letter of her password, DEP steps in and blocks her from continuing.
>
> I loaded Firefox, and Hotmail works normally under that browser. She's
> not interested in changing browsers, though, so I'd appreciate any
> advice on a fix. I do not want to change the setting back to "all
> programs" and enter exceptions; I'd have to be the one to do that, and I
> fear having her call me constantly to add another one. Nor do I want to
> turn off DEP entirely (even if that's possible).
>
> Sorry to sound sort of demanding in regard to what I don't want to do,
> but I'd appreciate any advice or links. I've seen some references on the
> Web to specific fixes for specific problems, such as certain toolbars
> that cause DEP problems, but nothing that pertains to my case.
>
> Thanks for any advice.

I read this first, to get some background.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Execution_Prevention

The question would be, why would hardware have detected an
attempt to execute some data area, as if it is code, just as
you're entering a password ? That can't be a coincidence.
Is this a sign of malware ? Or perhaps some goofy third party
add-in that is installed in the browser, and it's a bit too
clever ?

You can see, in the comments section here, the grief is endless.
Some people manage to figure out what is triggering DEP, but
most do not.

http://ask-leo.com/how_do_i_turn_off_data_execution_prevention_errors.html

Paul
From: VanguardLH on
John wrote:

> After a hardware upgrade (to an Athlon II x2 Regcor 245 chip and new
> motherboard), I'm struggling with a DEP-related problem. Running XP SP3 and
> IE8. The new chip is hardware DEP capable; the old one wasn't. The DEP is
> set to "protect critical programs," if I recall the wording correctly, not
> to protect all programs. Although the latter setting is supposedly the
> default, the "critical programs" setting showed the radio button when I
> looked at the DEP settings the first time.
>
> There is only one problem I've found (...my wife has found -- it's her
> computer) so far. When she tries to log on to Web-based Hotmail using IE8,
> her e-mail address is already entered for her. When she types the first
> letter of her password, DEP steps in and blocks her from continuing.
>
> I loaded Firefox, and Hotmail works normally under that browser. She's not
> interested in changing browsers, though, so I'd appreciate any advice on a
> fix. I do not want to change the setting back to "all programs" and enter
> exceptions; I'd have to be the one to do that, and I fear having her call me
> constantly to add another one. Nor do I want to turn off DEP entirely (even
> if that's possible).
>
> Sorry to sound sort of demanding in regard to what I don't want to do, but
> I'd appreciate any advice or links. I've seen some references on the Web to
> specific fixes for specific problems, such as certain toolbars that cause
> DEP problems, but nothing that pertains to my case.
>
> Thanks for any advice.

Same thing happen in IE8 if your wife loads IE8 in its no add-ons mode?
If that works, she installed an add-on that is poorly coded. DEP
protection showed up in IE7 but, by default, was disabled because there
were so many crappy add-ons around.

During the time IE7 and during development and beta testing of IE8,
developers of add-ons had far more than sufficient time and were
supposed to fix their code. The default in IE8 is to enable DEP
protection ("Enable memory protection to help mitigate online attacks",
Internet Options -> Advanced). It was enabled to match the other
increased security features available in IE8.

You could disable the security option mentioned above but then you open
yourself to some attacks using IE as the vector into your host. Or you
get rid of the crappy add-on. Or you check if it has a later version
that is better coded.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2008/04/08/ie8-security-part-i_3a00_-dep-nx-memory-protection.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd371730(VS.85).aspx

There are [likely] no add-ons that are absolutely required for using
IE8. Get rid (uninstall) the add-on that is causing the crash. First
run IE8 in its no add-ons mode to see if the crashing goes away. If it
does, disable all add-ons and then reenable them one at a time to test
if it causes the crashing. You can probably start with just disabling
all non-Microsoft add-ons to focus on those.