DEP On Windows Explorer?

[Vamp]

Occasionally when I shut down my PC, I get a Date Execution Prevention alert for Windows Explorer, which automatically closes it. My computer is kept clean from spyware, viruses and worms so I'm curious in why this happens. Any ideas?

[Damnatory]

From what I've read Date Execution Prevention is a program Microsoft designed to hinder virii from executing from locations in memory as apposed to from a file on your HDD.

This is what was said about Alerts:

The DEP error message should always tell you which software caused the problem and who the publisher is, if you do NOT recognise the information provided then suspect fowl play and seek the advice of a more experienced user/technician....

Have you run Hijackthis or a registry cleaner lately? If not I would start there, and maybe try running your AV while in safe-mode.

[Vamp]

Yep Hijack this comes clean as does all my Reg. Cleaners.

[Ne'tu]

If you want to completely turn off DEP you may edit boot.ini; it should look like this on Win XP:


[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=AlwaysOff /fastdetect /bootlogo

As you see you only need to switch to noexecute=AlwaysOff

[Vamp]

Well, I don't want to disable it as much as I wanna know why I keep on getting alerts.

[Ne'tu]

Well, DEP is really useful in many ocasions (like malware) but it has drawbacks, sometimes it blocks it's own Explorer.exe

I don't think you can do too much about it but if it annoys you that much you can disable it.