Missing games

[gennukem]

I have had a few games go missing they are gone from my computer i have checked program files folder /program x86 /control panel there not there this has happened 2 times with win 7 pro & ult 64 bit games from EA EMPIRE EPIC UBISOFT I have run superantispyware malwarebites panda cloud avast and bit defender found nothing

 

[CaedenV]

not likely a virus, viruses do a great many strange things, but hiding a random game is not one of them. It is possible that someone is logging on and playing a stick prank on you (or it is intervention from an addiction lol). The other possibility is that you are experiencing the beginning of a HDD failure. Try some HDD recovery or testing software and see if that finds anything. Easeus makes some good free software for that.

Also, any possibility (however strange) that you are reloading an image from before you installed the game?

LOL, I hope you are not running that many anti-virus programs at once on your computer. Pick one antivirus (Microsoft Security Essentials), and one anti-malware (Malwarebytes until MSE v4 comes out) and stick with them. Running multiple AVs tends to cause issues of their own and can slow a system down way more than a virus ever will.

 

[chriscornell]

+1 for the above post.

Are you using more than one user account on your Windows machine? Games could have been installed on another user account.

 

[hydroment]

gremlins. little suckers get ya every time. dang it! too bad they don't make anti-gremlin software.

I have one shop I will every now and then log into (read as drop by unannounced) and change the 'new mail sound'. right now it is bugs bunny announcing the arrival of the messages.

 

[gennukem]

one user account only using 1 av

 

[hydroment]

It doesn't sound like harddrive failure to me. Most drives, even under ideal circumstances, are fragmented to the point where installations of games or whatever are scattered across the disk. The installer will intentionally write to different parts of the drive depending on the directory structure. If it were a HD failure, something would remain. Icons on the desktop or start menu, the folder in the programs directory or something. If the icon was there and you tried to start it, the computer would react unfavorably. It sounds like it is literally being uninstalled. I have not heard of a virus that will uninstall software. The authors of malware want infect the software you are running so that their code will send back to them bits of information that can then be transformed to monetary gain or the like. So the question remains; who has had access to your computer to play this prank on you? You might want to change your password or add one if nonexistent. Also check the user config to be sure there are not any hidden users lurking about. Disable the guest account if it is active. Secure your wireless network if you have one. Be sure firewall is on and check settings, etc.

This is where I would start.

You could look into the window log files. These might shed some light on the subject.

click the start orb, and type computer management. Expand event viewer and click on windows logs.

A freeware app that might help is Watch 4 Folder 2.3 available from Softpedia. I don't know your habits, but mine are to leave the computers running 24/7. In this case the utility can be running and minimized to the sys tray to monitor any changes. The changes can also be written to a log file to know what of several monitoring options have occurred.

 

[gennukem]

looked do not what to look for

 

[hydroment]

Watch 4 Folder does not show previous activity. But it will inform of current activity. In your op you didn't give a timeframe as to when these games went missing so I am not sure if in the past week and a half you might have expected them to go missing. You didn't mention today if any have disappeared again. If not your probably won't see any notifications as such. If one does all of the sudden disappear check the log to see if it was deleted, at what time, and by what user. This really does sound like a prank. Or ;-) maybe like an intervention.

A search utility called Everything will list every file on the hard disks, internal and external and also flash media. Anything with a drive letter. It is free, only takes a few minutes to install and index the files. After that the search results are almost instantaneous. You could try this to search for the games that have gone missing. Maybe the games are still on the computer and have only been moved.