I dont know what the heck MS did but I can no longer just edit the boot.ini file with notepad.
My problem is that I have a program that currently has a known bug that crashes it while running. Until it is fixed the only workaround is to disable the windows DEP.
In short, the boot.ini file now reads:
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional x64 Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptOut
I need it to read:
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional x64 Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=AlwaysOff
BUT WINDOWS WONT LET ME CHANGE THE BOOT.INI

Anyone know how to do this??