Why don't things just work? | The Coffeehouse

intelman

How does one troubleshoot false DEP action? With the upgrade to IE8, I have been getting more false DEP crashes.

http://blog.kirb.us/2008/08/28/data-execution-prevention-closes-internet-explorer-8/

Seems that some people had the issue during the beta. In anycase, this is annoying. What triggers DEP to act and cause IE to "close" (which looks like a crash dialogue)? In XP, the user was notified if DEP was closing the app, which I think is a better experience, otherwise people think their apps are crashing due to shotty quality.

Does DEP even work to prevent malware? Its killed more legit processes than anything malicious. Visual Studio, IE, Sidebar....

My plugins are not out of the ordinary.

Adobe Flash
Adobe Reader
Java
Live ID Sign In
Silverlight 2

I hope the IE team suffers the same frustrations and it forces them to fix it so they can use it themselves Wink

Sven Groot
My name has 9 letters. Coincidence? I think not...

It tends to be add-ons. Some older versions of Flash and Java caused this, I think, I'm not 100% sure. Add-on compatibility was the reason DEP was not enabled by default for IE in IE7. In any case, try to use no add-ons mode to see if the problem still reproduces.

PaoloM
Hypermediocrity

In reply to Sven Groot

#Apr 23rd @ 7:58 PM

Almost all DEP crashes in IE8 are due to misbehaving plugins. Flash is actually notorious for that Smiley

blowdart
Peek-a-boo

Why do you think they're false? On modern CPUs DEP is enforced at a hardware level, it's kind of hard to create false alerts.

I've found Shockwave still creates DEP problems on x64 even now, I simply don't install it.

intelman

I use the weather gadget and the CPU meter gadget that came with Vista. If that trips DEP off......

IE is probably failing due to plugins. Not sure why Firefox doesn't trip DEP with the same plugins...

Microsoft should lay the smackdown on companies who make products that crash their products.

Sven Groot
My name has 9 letters. Coincidence? I think not...

In reply to intelman

#Apr 24th @ 12:50 AM

Not sure why Firefox doesn't trip DEP with the same plugins...

I don't think DEP is enabled for Firefox, it's opt-in by default so only processes that explicitly state they are compatible with DEP will get it.

Minh
WOOH! WOOH!

In reply to PaoloM

#Apr 23rd @ 7:59 PM

It's terrible that IE doesn't know which offending plugin is causing the shutdown.

From a user's POV, it's IE8 that has crashed.

IE marketing guy's nightmare!
"Oh yeah! That crashing? It's a feature! No, it's documented and everything! No, it's for YOUR protection!"

Is DEP on by default for IE8? If so, this seems like User Annoyance Control debacle all over again... How long before MS ships an update to IE8 that turns if off?

Mr. Arkadin

The second image in your post is from a Windows Explorer DEP incident, not Internet Explorer. What apps do you have integrated into the shell?

In the link you provided, the blog author posted:

"Update: I’m pretty suspicious its a Google Toolbar problem. Several times this error has occured when I open a new tab. The tab will still open, but Google Toolbar will not appear on the new tab."

What are you doing when the DEP incident happens? Did you forget to list a toolbar add on in your list? Respondents to the blog post are almost, if not totally, unanimous in the belief that the DEP incidents are add on-related, and I'm inclined to agree with them, especially since they're all referencing IE8 Beta.

What OS + SP are you running? Other applications?

You can enable the DEP column in Task Manager to see which processes have DEP enabled.
Does your DEP control panel indicate your CPU supports DEP? Is your CPU Intel or AMD or something else? Could it be your BIOS or chipset drivers?

This article is pretty decent http://windowsitpro.com/article/articleid/99638%29

fknight

In reply to Mr. Arkadin

#Apr 24th @ 7:06 AM

The second image in the OP's post was not part of his problem, but was inserted to illustrate the difference between DEP notifications in XP vs. DEP notifications in Vista.