Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 and Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2 (SP2) include the Driver Protection feature. This feature helps protect operating system stability by preventing the operating system from loading drivers that are known to cause stability problems. Driver Protection is built upon application compatibility technology that is present in Windows XP. Driver Protection is active at all times. The feature is available during operating system upgrades from prior versions of Windows and at runtime after the operating system is installed. Driver Protection is not intended to be disabled by end users.

Drivers that are known to cause stability problems are listed in the Driver Protection List database that is included with Windows XP. Driver Protection checks this database to determine whether to load a driver in Windows XP.