With PG enabled may I disable DEP ?

Hello, I've changed my notebook and thus had to change my OS from Win2k to WinXP Pro. I am still battling with WinXP, its preposterous firewall and other ridiculous "security" measures, especially unwelcome by somebody who uses browsers not supporting ActiveX. For instance, I consider DEP a pain the neck and here comes my question. As far as I have been able to understand, DEP should defend the system in a way similar to Process Guard's measures of defense. But then, as I do trust much more in PG (I am using 3,3 beta4) than in microsoft, couldn't I simply disable DEP and trust it in the junk bin?
I would be grateful to hear expert opinion on the matter.

 

i think DEP differs from PG in its protection. DEP is more like a buffer overflow protection. see here for Microsoft's explanation of DEP

ive never tried disabling DEP and ive never needed to, but i see nothing wrong with doing so.

 

DEP does provide a different type of protection than PG and may be worth retaining, but there are enough ways of getting round it that it realistically can only act as a speed bump to knowledgeable malware writers, not a road block.

 

Hardware DEP or are you refering to the lesser software DEP?

 

Both, as the linked post mentions.

 

Thank you WSFuser and Paranoid. Mele22, I was speaking of software DEP and so (I think) is Paranoid. Paranoid, if I read you correctly, it's up to me to keep or to disable (sofware) DEP - because finally it won't make a great difference ?

 

PG and similar utilities in my view provide far more security than DEP, but DEP (hardware or software) does address a different area. If you find it a problem then it is unlikely to be worth keeping but otherwise it may serve a purpose - just don't consider it as a strong defense.

 

Thank you Paranoid , it's quite clear.