Windows XP SP2 (Service Pack 2) introduced some new “Data Execution Prevention” features that are designed to prevent certain types of malicious code attacks. There are two components to these new features: software protections and hardware protections. When SP2 was released, very few pieces of hardware supported the hardware protections and we didn’t see any problems with Pro Tools.
The end user experience is that you install Pro Tools on a new machine, you launch it, and the machine reboots. The solution is to disable the “Data Execution Protection” features.
DEP (Data Execution Prevention)
Right-click "My Computer".
Select "Properties".
Select the "Advanced" tab.
Click the "Settings" button in the "Startup and Recovery" category.
Under the "System startup" category, click on the "Edit" button, which will open the system startup parameters in Notepad. Change NoExecute=Optin or Optout to NoExecute=AlwaysOff.
Close window.
Click OK and say Yes to saving the settings and restart your computer.
When SP2 was released, very few pieces of hardware supported the hardware protections and we didn’t see any problems with Pro Tools. However, as new PCs are released more and more of them have this feature available. The bad news for us is that this feature is not compatible with Pro Tools, nor is it compatible with Pace (copy protection software).