Changes data execution prevention (DEP) and DEP-ATL thunk emulation settings for a 32-bit process.

Syntax

BOOL WINAPI SetProcessDEPPolicy(
  __in  DWORD dwFlags
);

Parameters

dwFlags [in]

A DWORD that can be one or more of the following values.

Value	Meaning
0	If the DEP system policy is OptIn or OptOut and DEP is enabled for the process, setting dwFlags to 0 disables DEP for the process.
PROCESS_DEP_ENABLE 0x00000001	Enables DEP permanently on the current process. After DEP has been enabled for the process by setting PROCESS_DEP_ENABLE, it cannot be disabled for the life of the process.
PROCESS_DEP_DISABLE_ATL_THUNK_EMULATION 0x00000002	Disables DEP-ATL thunk emulation for the current process, which prevents the system from intercepting NX faults that originate from the Active Template Library (ATL) thunk layer. For more information, see the Remarks section. This flag can be specified only with PROCESS_DEP_ENABLE.

 

Return Value

If the function succeeds, it returns TRUE.

If the function fails, it returns FALSE. To retrieve error values defined for this function, call GetLastError.

Remarks

The SetProcessDEPPolicy function overrides the system DEP policy for the current process unless its DEP policy was specified at process creation. The system DEP policy setting must be OptIn or OptOut. If the system DEP policy is AlwaysOff or AlwaysOn, SetProcessDEPPolicy returns an error. After DEP is enabled for a process, subsequent calls to SetProcessDEPPolicy are ignored.

DEP policy specified at process creation with the PROC_THREAD_ATTRIBUTE_MITIGATION_POLICY attribute cannot be changed for the life of the process. In this case, calls to SetProcessDEPPolicy fail with ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED.

SetProcessDEPPolicy is supported for 32-bit processes only. If this function is called on a 64-bit process, it fails with STATUS_NOT_SUPPORTED.

Applications written to ATL 7.1 and earlier can attempt to execute code on pages marked as non-executable, which triggers an NX fault and terminates the application. DEP-ATL thunk emulation allows an application that would otherwise trigger an NX fault to run with DEP enabled. For information about ATL versions, see ATL and MFC Version Numbers.

If DEP-ATL thunk emulation is enabled, the system intercepts NX faults, emulates the instructions, and handles the exceptions so the application can continue to run. If DEP-ATL thunk emulation is disabled by setting PROCESS_DEP_DISABLE_ATL_THUNK_EMULATION for the process, NX faults are not intercepted, which is useful when testing applications for compatibility with DEP.

The following table summarizes the interactions between system DEP policy, DEP-ATL thunk emulation, and SetProcessDEPPolicy. To get the system DEP policy setting, use the GetSystemDEPPolicy function.

To compile an application that calls this function, define _WIN32_WINNT as 0x0600 or later. For more information, see Using the Windows Headers.

Requirements

See Also

Data Execution Prevention

GetSystemDEPPolicy

GetProcessDEPPolicy

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Build date: 9/17/2009