ASLR/DEP disabled to AvastUI.exe

[DavidR]

<snip>
Thanks for your reply
Yes

Thought i would ad a attachment

Thanks for the 'small' attachment

If you play with the Process Explorer, 'Process' column heading you will see some differences in the results as the column (my small image attachment), aside from changing the ordering it is also a toggle for different views.

So why my system with the same OS, XP Pro SP3 and avast 5.0 free shows DEP for both avastUI and avastSvc yet yours doesn't is beyond me.

[ardvark]

Hi all....

Was there something you had to enable in Process Explorer to see this information? My copy doesn't and I'm running as an administrator.

Regards...

[DavidR]

Only in the columns that are viewed if you don't have that category selected then there will be no corresponding column.

[Gopher John]

There is however some disparity even between the same OS XP SP3 as some are showing DEP used yet others aren't. Now as far as I'm aware DEP is also hardware dependant and I don't know if AMD processors are fully DEP enabled. There is also that wrinkle about what analysis tool you are using (process explorer) and if you are running it as Admin, etc. So those may be other areas where there will be disparity between different user systems.

There is a small utility available to determine hardware DEP capability.

http://www.grc.com/securable.htm

Modern processors incorporate features beneficial to
security.  SecurAble displays the status of the three
most significant security-related processor features:

SecurAble probes the system's processor to determine the presence, absence and operational status of three modern processor features:

    * 64-bit instruction extensions,
    * Hardware support for detecting and preventing
      the execution of code in program data areas, ... and
    * Hardware support for system resource “virtualization.”

[DavidR]

That's a pretty old tool just over two years old, ancient in terms of processor development so I though it wouldn't recognise the later AMD/Intel CPUs; though it does seem to do that.

[Gopher John]

My machine is older than the program.  Perhaps someone with an I7 processor installed could test Securable and report if it's valid for newer processors.

[DavidR]

Mine is less than two years and the intel Core2Duo E8300 is less than two years old I believe and it was able to detect that correctly and say that Hardware DEP is disabled on my system (I need to check out the BIOS settings), so only software DEP protection.

[silviucc]

Look for some feature with NX bit or No-execute bit in the BIOS.

Are you sure that DEP is in opt-in mode on your system? I ask because I do remember looking at Avast in procexp and it did not see it use DEP and because I highly doubt that the guy that programmed ClocX would bother to use DEP...

[DavidR]

I I did opt-in on the software DEP in the OS some time ago (see image) as virtually all of the processes in my process explorer list are DEP, the exceptions are the ones that aren't only 3 of them.

I have only 2 that are DEP (permanent) Firefox and the Plugin Container for Firefox.

[silviucc]

Ah, there it is. That is why Avast shows as using DEP. I guess as long as apps do not act badly with this setting it's certainly worth keeping it that way.

[DavidR]

Well I don't have any BSODs or any unexplained behaviour.

[crofty59]

Thanks DavidR

Sorry for the large attachment.
it is also a mystery to me, why DEP doesn't show on my system for Avast.


Cheers

[DavidR]

Well if you read the last few posts, it may be that I'm forcing it to be used by my selection of the software DEP protection for all applications (my last image posted).

[crofty59]

Well if you read the last few posts, it may be that I'm forcing it to be used by my selection of the software DEP protection for all applications (my last image posted).

Thanks DavidR
I did read the last few posts, but i am not the "sharpest tool in the shed".
I will go and check it out.
Cheers

Edit: Took me a couple of minutes on Google to find where to go to change (dep) settings.
       So now dep is showing on (AvastSvc.exe and also AvastUI.exe.)
 
      Thanks once again DavidR
Cheers

[ardvark]

Only in the columns that are viewed if you don't have that category selected then there will be no corresponding column.

Hi David...

Got it, thank you!

Regards...