The Alpha platform's default behavior when it encounters an unaligned data operation involving a primitive data is for the operating system to fix up the alignment fault in memory. This default behavior can be changed system-wide or on a per-process basis.
The following table summarizes platform behavior and how to change the default behavior.
| Default system behavior when aligned data operation is encountered | To change globally |
To change on a per-process basis |
| Fixed up in memory by Windows NT. | Run axpalign utility with the /enable or /disable parameter and reboot. | Use SetErrorMode (SEM_NOALIGNMENTFAULTEXCEPT); |