In one embodiment, a processor is configured to operate in a first mode in which privilege level protection is disabled and paging is enabled. In another embodiment, a method is contemplated including intercepting a write to a control register by a guest executing in a processor; determining that the write attempts to establish a first mode in the processor in which privilege level protection is disabled and paging is disabled; and causing the guest to execute in a second mode in which privilege level protection is disabled and paging is enabled instead of the first mode. A computer accessible medium comprising instruction implementing at least a portion of the method is also described.