Turn On or Off Core Isolation Memory Integrity in Windows 10  

purplenate26 said:

When I try to turn this on, it just immediately turns off. How do I get it to stay on? Nothing I do seems to make it stay on. I turn it on and reboot and it's off! Any ideas? I have virtualization turned on in the BIOS. I can take photos of my BIOS if need be.

Brink said:

Hello purplenate26,

Does it do the same when using the .reg method in Option 2?

Just a reminder, some drivers can and will prevent Core Isolation from working, like ancient AMD, some WiFi card drivers, anti virus drivers, and other software drivers:
Windows Defender System Guard: Making a leap forward in platform security with memory integrity - Microsoft Tech Community - 167303

Application compatibility
While hypervisor-protected code integrity compliance has been a requirement for all drivers since Windows 10 Anniversary Update (1607), some drivers may still not be compatible. This may cause devices or software to malfunction. Such issues may occur after Memory integrity protection has been turned on or during the enablement process itself. If you’re an application developer and want to validate if your drivers and software packages are compliant with memory integrity, you can follow the steps outlined here.
We worked hard to mitigate impacted experiences, so if an incompatibility exists for a boot-critical driver, Memory integrity protection will be silently turned off. If you encounter incompatibilities with other apps, Microsoft advises that you check for updates for the specific app and version encountering the issue before turning off memory integrity protection. The following links show some examples of commonly-used APIs that cause executable memory to be allocated, along with some example fixes:

purplenate26 said:

Hi guys. Sorry for the late reply. I tried the .reg method and rebooted my computer and it broke my machine. My laptop says it no longer detects a boot device. So I called Dell and we went through all their pre-boot diagnostics testing and the BIOS still wouldn't see the SSD. It's strange that this would happen just as I would reboot after the .reg. I mean, my laptop is a Dell XPS 15 9560 from May 2017 and has been continuously updated through Dell and Microsoft. It's stock software and hardware.

You don't think the .reg can break a hard drive do you? Dell is going to replace my hard drive for free in a couple of days. I think the technician comes to my house on Wednesday. It's probably just a coincidence that my hard drive disappeared from the BIOS and I applied the .reg at the same time. Next time I'll check on the Dell XPS forums and ask about this tutorial and see what other XPS owners and staff have to say about it.

Thank you everybody for your quick reply. I'm sorry that I couldn't give you a resolution to my problem.

The .reg file wouldn't have any affect on a hard drive.

Please let us know how it goes after the hard drive is replaced.

@Brink,
Hey Shawn here is an interesting tidbit:

Since I installed my new 9900K, Core Isolation cannot be turned on
I have made no software or driver changes, I just swapped out my 8700K for the 9900K(and deleted the 8700K from Device Manager too).

It does have two built in hardware meltdown & spectre mitigations, so I wonder if it's that, as that side channel stuff has to do with memory and the CPU's cache levels, plus hyperthreading

Cliff S said:

@Brink,
Hey Shawn here is an interesting tidbit:

Since I installed my new 9900K, Core Isolation cannot be turned on
I have made no software or driver changes, I just swapped out my 8700K for the 9900K(and deleted the 8700K from Device Manager too).

It does have two built in hardware meltdown & spectre mitigations, so I wonder if it's that, as that side channel stuff has to do with memory and the CPU's cache levels, plus hyperthreading

Hello Cliff,

Interesting. I wonder if a clean install may allow it if it's an issue with just swapping processors.

Brink said:

Hello Cliff,

Interesting. I wonder if a clean install may allow it if it's an issue with just swapping processors.

On my system that's way too much work

I am the "Install Once: Re-image as needed" type of user

Cliff S said:

On my system that's way too much work

I am the "Install Once: Re-image as needed" type of user

I'm always having to clean install with all the playing I do, but I keep a very default simple install anyways.

Brink said:

I'm always having to clean install with all the playing I do, but I keep a very default simple install anyways.

For playing around I have my VM's, and checkpoints.