Vista: Disable DEP or NoExecute Protection to fix Explorer Crashing
Contributed by Hack_Vista 
Tagged: Microsoft Vista Some explorer crashes, especially in the early builds of vista, are due to DEP violations. Turn it off and see if it helps.
DEP or NoExecute Protection will be a vital part of vista security. During these early builds, however, it can lead to many explorer crashes.
If you are getting a lot of explorer crashes, disable it and see if it helps.
Disable DEP in Vista:
1. Click Start
2. Click All Programs
3. Click Accessories
4. Right Click on Command Prompt
5. Left click on Run as Administrator
6. Click the Allow button if it asks you for permission
7. Type or copy and paste this into the command prompt window:
bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx AlwaysOff
8. Hit enter and you should see the confirmation: Operation Completed Successfully
9. Reboot and DEP should be off.
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help? said on October 13, 2008
so how do I re-enable this? change it to alwayson?
Daniel said on November 9, 2008
Is DEP the confirmation thing? if so it doesnt work, i cant get my damn homeworld 2 to work no nmatter what i do D:
Anonymous said on November 9, 2008
Pro-Tip: Doesn’t work with SP1
stefano said on November 13, 2008
vistax64 with intel processors, cannot disable DEP and trust me I have used every hack I could find on the net I need suggestions plz
rainbowwwarrior said on November 24, 2008
yeahhhhhhhh – it works ;o))))
thx a lot !
Abul said on November 25, 2008
{WORKING FIX}
tried everything….. Mines fixed now, sympathys to all whose isnt …. My advice.. boot in safe mode, search for “system restore” choose a point taht it 1 week + from when it started to skrew up….and hopfully your as lucky as i was…and it fixes it. Good LUCK@!@!@$#$@$
Gerd said on November 30, 2008
It does not work, my TurboCad prof 10.2 still does not work
jojo said on January 10, 2009
DEP doesn’t work at all
Mark said on January 27, 2009
It’s about time MS runs you all over the place, took another to help get rid of there IE 8 Beta
Thanks you really helped me out
Mark
Trevor Wainwright said on March 12, 2009
I’ve DEP shutting down my spooler so that the printer does not work. I no longer get the message on start up but the spooler is always off. This in XP though. What has suddenly started this? I cannot get the spooler to start manually either. Bit of a drag as you can usually print your help before starting the fix, I have to write everything down!
SRINIVAS said on March 13, 2009
thnks u r awesome i was trying to solve this problem for so long days finally i got it solved
yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
Jamaico Tan said on April 5, 2009
hi i really have problems on this one and i follow what you said already but it says there that bcedit.exe is not recognized as an internal or external command
please help me on this
it would really be a pleasure iof you can help me
Pla said on April 11, 2009
Yeah. It works but be sure you run command prompt as admin.
m said on May 2, 2009
bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx AlwaysOff
make sure its B C D edit
cheers
XXXXX said on May 15, 2009
/////I have tried to disable DEP a few times but when I enter the command it says “The boot configuration data store could not be opened , Access denied” Help Please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!/////
same problem here…..
Adnan said on May 15, 2009
Not very useful. I did it but to no avail: caused more trouble. I reinstalled avgfree and ran a disc check on C drive which solved my problem.
ef said on May 17, 2009
hmm “no bcedit found”
orion said on May 22, 2009
you missed the “d”. its bcdedit.exe
orion said on May 22, 2009
remember, first open the command prompt by “run as admin”. then type in bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx optin
laree said on May 25, 2009
mine said the same thing
craig said on May 26, 2009
i know this might be an easy fix but i turned off DEP because it was blocking a program and the DEP is still stopping it from running. any ideas?
joeh said on May 28, 2009
I had same problem with Vista Home running IE8. I disabled Google Toolbar add-ons and all is OK now. (Right click Internet explorer, select start IE without Add-Ons – if this works you can then go to Manage Add-Ons and disable individual ones. I disabled the most recently intalled ones and by a process of elimination discovered that it was Google Toolbar and Google Findbar which were the cause of the problem)
Ali said on May 29, 2009
i did that but nothing happened !!!!!
MASF said on June 4, 2009
Thank you it worked perfectly. God bles your soul. :)
Zoey said on June 5, 2009
I typed in the command in the command prompt and it disabled DEP but the program it kept blocking still doesn’t work. Do you know what I can do to get the program working?
Ross Wilson said on June 5, 2009
to reverse this do the same as above but type : bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx OptIn into the command window
Jeff said on June 9, 2009
When I run the command i get:
“The boot configuration could not be opened. The maximum number of secrets that may be stored in a single system has been exceeded.”
Any ideas on that?
C said on June 14, 2009
Thanx!!! Back up and running! Can get the job done now. I want to leave this off, What problems would I encounter,If any?
Robert said on June 17, 2009
Thanks! This actually accomplished my intended task. The other 30 articles I read on this subject were complete crap. Again, thanks.
??? said on June 30, 2009
this does not work for me.
I always end up getting, access denied.
Can someone please help?!
naxtor said on July 10, 2009
it works fine
Anonymous said on July 31, 2009
Doesn’t work with Service Pack 1?? THANK YOU SOOO MUCH, I couldnt figure out why this wouldn’t work.
Anonymous said on July 31, 2009
Install SP2 and it should work.
Anonymous said on August 12, 2009
how do i turn it on again?
Anonymous said on August 16, 2009
You didn’t run it as admin, try again and follow directions better.
Anonymous said on September 8, 2009
I disabled DEP as you described with bcdedit.exe command line entry. The problem was not solved and I cannot restart DEP with bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx AlwaysOn. So, now I sttil have the problem and no DEP support. What now?
Anonymous said on September 26, 2009
DEP is a bit of security from windows (thhat i find annoying because it closes all my fav apps all the time, i do have to restart app after diabling for program) that closes programs using to much memory, or something. When a program does something windows doesn’t like, DEP(data execution prevention) closes it.
Anonymous said on November 1, 2009
I have Vistax64 home premium and intel core 2 duo and dep does work as i can now play homeworld 2
Anonymous said on November 5, 2009
Hiii,I did as it is and now it is working perfectly.But am shutting down by DEP for all the essential Windows programs….
Please let me know
Anonymous said on November 5, 2009
What does this command do then “bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx optin”
Am I setting my DEP on again
rhre;pf said on November 7, 2009
right click the command prompt as admin right click>drop bar>open as admin then continue the process
Frankie said on November 17, 2009
Turning it off still diddnt work, Im trying to play halo 2 and data execution keeps comming up when i start the game, i called microsoft and they diddnt help cause my warranty ran out, i checked other trobleshooting steps like running the game as admin. or chaging the compatibilty to xp sp2, but halo2 is for vista
i have a home built comp
it has vista premiun 32bit
dont remember wat the m/b is i know its an ecs
umm it has a intel core i5 2.66ghz quad
and corsair xms3 4gb ddr3 memory
320gb samsung hdd
his radeon hd 4670 1gbddr3 videocard
idk wat the problem is but it only does this to vista games like halo2 shadowrun gears of war crysis warhead, crysis works fine
Anonymous said on November 29, 2009
Thank you so much! You totally helped me fix my problem. I disable all Google items and then I was able to see the items on the websites I needed to see. No one else seemed able to help me. Thanks again!
Anonymous said on December 1, 2009
Is administrator go thre okay rebooted and it still doesent work dep is constantly greyed out with a tick in the box for enable. I am using internet explorer 8 with pack 2 for vista. I hate fucking dep…
Anonymous said on December 2, 2009
FOR THOSE WHO WANT TO GO TO THE DEFAULT DEP!
1) Right click on cmd : Run as Administrator
2) type : bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx Optout
3) Restart pc
4) Everything back :D
5) DONT EVER TRY AGAIN the : nx [AlwaysOff OR AlwaysOn]
Thanks! I hope you all be alright!
Donna said on January 7, 2010
I cannot fix the Data execution prevention no matter what I do, my hubby can check his email without getting these notifications, from the same computer.
Anonymous said on January 11, 2010
the confirmation thing that always says Allow or Cancle, is UAC, and is a whole other ball of worms
Anonymous said on January 11, 2010
when you get to the CMD on the accessories list dont click on to it, instead do a right click and select to rum CMD as an administrator- then copy and paste as per point 7 above-
Running CMD as a “User” does not give the the permissions you need!
Chez
Donna said on January 11, 2010
Thank you ChezzaX! I really appreciate your suggestion but I got it fixed, had to pay for it (charge) it took two days of chatting with the East Indians but it turned out to be Internet Explorer 8, This computer, an HP came with Explorer 7 and because of my constant and annoying updates, I downloaded Explorer 8, Big mistake! DEP is such a pain, there are many suggestions for fixes on here, hope anyone else chooses the right one.
Anonymous said on January 13, 2010
This does not work. Unknown command
Anonymous said on February 9, 2010
THATS WHAT IT SAYS WITH ME HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11
Emonk said on February 20, 2010
that doesn’t work!! IE:made my PC crash had to reinstall my OS
Anonymous said on February 21, 2010
Sorry, try some more solutions on this page….Their are many more high tech people than what I am. I do feel your pain though.
Anonymous said on March 12, 2010
I don’t know the admin password !
guy from place said on May 17, 2010
mine says i exceeded max number of secrets for my sustem whats that mean?
Tina said on June 6, 2010
Thank you! I always forget how to do that “run as administrator” thing and forget that IT’s the thing causing the secondary problem! Very grateful!
Jessica said on June 22, 2010
I still need more help. I It turned it off, but my problem is still happening, now it;s just not popping up that data execution prevention did it. It happens when I am on my school website and need to post something, it won’t open up anything unless it comes in a new tab. Now that I turned DEP off, internet just stops working…
I really need this for school. Please help
Neil68hatcher said on July 12, 2010
What if access is denied
bensherma said on August 10, 2010
Because of this i cant pley any of my computer games…
the moment i start the game executable it says setup has stop working…
ok i will try it out and get back u the feed back in case it works for me…
Anonymous said on August 26, 2010
I am using windows vista home edition. Recently I upgraded Internet Explorer. Many windows are opened while browsing various web sites and if any one window is closed by me, instantly all other opened windows are closed.
I believe it is part of DEP program introduced by Microsoft. I executed your command as administrator and rebooted and the problem is solved.Thanks for the help. Any program should not override user options. Beyond the intendented purpose of the program it becomes a pain in the neck for the user.
Sebastian Koylerian
X--kATSUMI said on September 25, 2010
SAME
hpyfmly said on September 27, 2010
I know this was some time ago, but I just did a clean install on new hard drive…I kept getting the error, followed your instructions and now my computer won’t boot up – not even in safe mode. I am running a “Pre-boot system assessment”. Any suggestions? By the way, I JUST got done updating the Vista Service Pack 1 which I see from others posts that it’s not compatible….wish I would have seen that sooner.
Captainbill0624 said on October 14, 2010
YEPER THAT WORKED THANKS CHEZ….
Dave said on November 25, 2010
dont work. but please create and post a new code to take off this stupid DEP. thanx.. im sick of it and adobe crashing my ie8
Tannernascar said on February 10, 2011
how do you turn it back on?
Christina said on February 14, 2011
thanks a lot…after browsing all the topics your suggestion was the best and worked
Anonymous said on February 14, 2011
Glad to be of help!!
Kind Regards
Cheryl D Brewster
SwordWrath said on February 14, 2011
when i disable dep and reboot (it said it was successful) it still closes programs. i cant find anything on the internet. help!
Leloucharvin said on March 2, 2011
you cant even copy that so i cant do it
eric hunter said on April 8, 2011
right click on the command prompt icon and click Run As Administrator. click, then type bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx AlwaysOff then go to start menu and restart it should be fine
flintstone said on June 4, 2011
LOVE U man thanks a lot… works!!