my beloved solitaire has disappeared along with all of the other games that come with windows xp like spider solitaire, internet checkers etc. i noticed that solitaire was missing a few hours ago but i just thought that someone in my family had deleted it, then i just checked under games now and it says empty :( so basically, my question is, what could have caused all of my games to disappear just like that, and can i retrieve them?

ive also asked everyone in my family if they have deleted anything off of the pc today and none of them have. theres nothing in the recycle bin and when i do a search for "solitaire" nothing comes up. everything has been working fine up until now.

not sure of the problem, but...

can you get them from the xp installation cd? not sure cos i have win98 but you could try.

if not, maybe this (http://www.download.com/Deleted-File-Analysis-Utility/3000-2248-10286966.html?tag=lst-0-1) will help?

if that's no good, then one of the 'free to try' programs (search "recover deleted file" etc), i guess they'll be ok as you'll probably only need them for this one attempt (hopefully anyway!).

good luck getting them back! :s

thanks for the help Chris, im gonna try what you said now. if all else fails i guess i will just have to do a system restore. im just hoping that whatever made these games disappear, wont make any of our more important files disappear too. i dont understand where or how they have gone :confused:

I'm sure the programs are still there. Likely it's the shortcuts. In fact, the most likely cause is that you're computer is logged in under a different user than the one you normally use. The start menu configuration is stored on a per user basis. Check the start menu, at the top, it tells you who you are logged in as. To switch users select Log Off from the start menu and then select the user you are normally logged in as.

If you do a search for 'solitaire' you won't find it.

The file name is sol.exe ,you can go File -> Run -> Sol.exe to run it.

As for why your they have been removed off your start menu...buggers me..

searched for sol.exe and apparently "Windows cannot find sol.exe" im just gonna have to do a system restore.

about the user thing, im under the user that i always go on and theyre not here. ive checked every user on this computer and the games arent under any single one.

anyway thanks for your help. its really bugging me, that things have just vanished off of my computer but i guess there is nothing i can do about it apart from trying a system restore.

thanks again everyone.

If the games really are missing (which seems very odd to me), you can get them back without doing a system restore (which creates all sorts of potential for screw-ups).

Go to your Control Panel and select Add or Remove Programs. Once that applet comes up, click on the button to the left that says Add/Remove Windows Components. Once that comes up, the Accessories and Utilities option contains the games. Select it and press Details to bring up another window where you can select games and select Details on that one to see exactly which games are installed or that you want to install.

That problem happened to me and you know what made it worse. The sims shortcut was also destroyed which wasn't actually a shotcut! It made the game crash and asked me to reinstall all 5 expansions AGAIN. After the 7th time I did this using many Internet tools I reformatted my PC for other reasons (such as Word and Paint breaking down). The Sims didn't work because it's a very poorly built game, I sold all my Sims games for £50 and bought the PS2 version which is nice and simple. Burn the Sims! Anyway, it's awful isn't it! It happened so randomly.

That problem happened to me and you know what made it worse. The sims shortcut was also destroyed which wasn't actually a shotcut! It made the game crash and asked me to reinstall all 5 expansions AGAIN. After the 7th time I did this using many Internet tools I reformatted my PC for other reasons (such as Word and Paint breaking down). The Sims didn't work because it's a very poorly built game, I sold all my Sims games for £50 and bought the PS2 version which is nice and simple. Burn the Sims! Anyway, it's awful isn't it! It happened so randomly.

I really think the only way something like "random data being destroyed" could happen is A) If someone deleted it or B) Deleted by some form of virus. Otherwise, data doesn't get randomly lost except in cases of hardware failure, except that is likely to be a bit more widespread as in, whole sections of your hard drive going bad, which would render much of your system inoperable.

If the games really are missing (which seems very odd to me), you can get them back without doing a system restore (which creates all sorts of potential for screw-ups).

Go to your Control Panel and select Add or Remove Programs. Once that applet comes up, click on the button to the left that says Add/Remove Windows Components. Once that comes up, the Accessories and Utilities option contains the games. Select it and press Details to bring up another window where you can select games and select Details on that one to see exactly which games are installed or that you want to install.thanks, ive just done it and it worked :D. i think we have a virus of some sort. thats all i can put it down to, but ill get that sorted. thanks a lot for your help :)

thanks, ive just done it and it worked :D. i think we have a virus of some sort. thats all i can put it down to, but ill get that sorted. thanks a lot for your help :)Er, that's not good lol. Use Norton Systemworks.:)

Er, that's not good lol. Use Norton Systemworks.:)
lol i know. my dad usually deals with the viruses so ill leave it to him, but ill tell him about Norton Systemworks. Thanks for the advice :)

im just happy i got my games back (solitaire=boredom killer) :p