[progress Communities] [progress Openedge Abl] Proactive Strategy For Data Execution...

[dbeavon]

After weeks of struggling with an obscure OE bug in Windows (that never affected us on HP-UX) I opened a support case and discovered that Progress doesn't even support the default configuration of a certain Windows feature (Data Execution Prevention) . Background: By default, a Windows server enforces Data Execution Prevention (DEP). It uses software and hardware to detect and terminate a program when it is executing instructions outside of its memory space (and/or outside of the code segments within its own memory). This feature prevents malicious or self-modifying programs from being able to execute. So DEP in Windows appears to have been responsible for the obscure behavior in Windows that never affected HP-UX. In other words, Windows thinks that a Progress OE client is a malicious, self-modifying program. During my support case, the engineer informed me that Progress OE doesn't run correctly on Windows when DEP is enforced. So the obvious question is "WHY DOESN'T THE SETUP CHECK FOR THIS WELL-KNOWN INCOMPATIBILITY"? How come the Progress OE products allow themselves to be installed in a way that will be doomed for failure? Why should users and developers of Progress troubleshoot the obscure and random OE ABL failures that occur because of the *default* configuration of DEP on Windows? IMHO this is a serious installation and configuration issue that Progress seems to be ignoring. Progress should seriously consider either (1) preventing an installation if DEP is enabled, or (2) providing a checkbox with a warning message that says [x] I want to proceed with the installation, even though Progress is incompatible with my DEP settings and will likely crash. I'm adding this suggestion as the *first* step in a larger DEP strategy for Progress. Obviously the second step is for Progress to find all the underlying root causes for failures in the Windows configurations where DEP is enforced. Many other large and complex applications are able to run perfectly well on DEP-enabled servers.

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