Question Programs disappear without any reason

ciro_881

Commendable
Jul 16, 2019
34
1
1,535
Lately I've been noticing that some of my apps and programs randomaly disappear. OBS Studio, Handbrake, Photoshop 2020, a game on steam all disappeared and they only thing remaining was the old and broken shortcut.
I run my OS (Windows 10) on my ssd and then use a 2TB hdd to store all of the stuff I need. Both ssd and hdd are "new" with 6 or 7 months of use.
I used both the troubleshooter of Windows and the proprietary software from Seagate to find any errors on the units and everything was fine.
I scanned my pc with Malwarebytes and there was no sign of viruses.
Any idea how to fix this?

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600X
GPU: SAPPHIRE RX580 8GB
RAM: HyperX Pradator 2x4 3200MHz + HyperX Fury 2x8 3200MHz
MOBO: Gigabyte B450 Aorus Elite
SSD: Kingston A2000 500GB
HDD: SEAGATE Barracuda 2TB 7200rpm
PSU: Corsair VS650W
 

Blackink

Distinguished
Wow....I remember having this same problem but it was years ago on an old Packard bell PC.
Every time I would click on an icon on the desktop to start a program, the program would never load up and the icon shortcut would change to look like an empty icon/folder.
I had AOL as my connection to the Internet back then and I may have picked up a virus somehow.

I ended up doing a clean install of Windows XP and it fixed the problem.
 
The folder is still there and the .exe is gone. Is the other files gone too or only the .exe?

If you have an antivirus installed look at that. It can remove exe from a folder just because of a false positive and put it in quarantine.

Files don't just go pouff and gone. Something is happening.
 

ciro_881

Commendable
Jul 16, 2019
34
1
1,535
The folder is still there and the .exe is gone. Is the other files gone too or only the .exe?

If you have an antivirus installed look at that. It can remove exe from a folder just because of a false positive and put it in quarantine.

Files don't just go pouff and gone. Something is happening.

This may be sound strange but... it depends. Photoshop still had the folder with all the files in it and no exe, meanwhile in the OBS folder there was nothing.
I know I sound like a fool but I'm really confused. Something like this never happened to me and I'm scared something else is gonna get deleted right when I need it.
 

ciro_881

Commendable
Jul 16, 2019
34
1
1,535
Does anybody except yourself have access to the computer ?

Have you being called by phone from "tech support" or similarly lately and given instructions on what to do on screen ?

Nope, built and use the pc myself. I haven't received any scam calls either.
After installing those programs again, it seems to be okay for now but I genuinely have no idea of what caused that