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General discussionEXE launcher files keep disappearing.(11 posts)(11 posts)
(11 posts)
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Posted September 27, 2019
INB4 "scan for viruses". Already did, with Malwarebytes and Avast boot-time. Squeaky clean. I have no background apps running, PC is brand new.

This has happened with 2 games so far: BioShock Infinite (once) and Grim Dawn (about 5 times). Used the offline installer to reinstall, which brought them back, and after a day or two the exe is missing again. Just the exes, savegames and all other dlls, etc. are fine.

When it first happened in Grim Dawn, I just used the 32-bit "Grim Dawn.exe" in the game's main directory and that was fine. But then that disappeared too. Reinstalled the game, they're back again for some time between an hour and a couple of days, then they're gone and I need to reinstall again.

Checked Windows event logs - nothing.

Pls to halp.
Post edited September 27, 2019 by madjarov42
Posted September 27, 2019
The first culprit I can think of is just your security software, which may be wrongly flagging them as infected and be set to silently "clean", as they generally are by default, not alert and prompt you for an action, so when it scans them it'll delete them. But if you manually scan them (as in those specific files, not running some preset scan) with what you have running and they're fine, I'm at a loss.
Posted September 27, 2019
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madjarov42: INB4 "scan for viruses". Already did, with Malwarebytes and Avast boot-time. Squeaky clean. I have no background apps running, PC is brand new.

This has happened with 2 games so far: BioShock Infinite (once) and Grim Dawn (about 5 times). Used the offline installer to reinstall, which brought them back, and after a day or two the exe is missing again. Just the exes, savegames and all other dlls, etc. are fine.

When it first happened in Grim Dawn, I just used the 32-bit "Grim Dawn.exe" in the game's main directory and that was fine. But then that disappeared too. Reinstalled the game, they're back again for some time between an hour and a couple of days, then they're gone and I need to reinstall again.

Checked Windows event logs - nothing.

Pls to halp.
Its not a straight forward program to use particularly if you aren't a technical user but process monitor will allow you to see whats happening https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/procmon
you will want to disable all the filters except the file system one and you want to further filter on the name of the exe you are interested in then do whatever makes them disappear and you will catch what is doing it.
Posted September 27, 2019
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Cavalary: The first culprit I can think of is just your security software, which may be wrongly flagging them as infected and be set to silently "clean", as they generally are by default, not alert and prompt you for an action, so when it scans them it'll delete them.
Alternatively, these files are being quarantined instead of deleted. Nonetheless I agree with you that the likely culprit is the OP's antivirus or other security software.
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Cavalary: But if you manually scan them (as in those specific files, not running some preset scan) with what you have running and they're fine, I'm at a loss.
Maybe the OP has another antivirus active and he isn't aware of it? Let's not forget Windows comes with a crappy antivirus preinstalled.
Posted September 27, 2019
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Cavalary: wrongly flagging them as infected and be set to silently "clean"
I hadn't thought of that, you're probably right. (Can't confirm yet because I'm not home.)
Posted September 27, 2019
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joppo: Let's not forget Windows comes with a crappy antivirus preinstalled.
Last I checked, Windows Security Essentials used to come up pretty good in various tests.
Posted September 27, 2019
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joppo: Let's not forget Windows comes with a crappy antivirus preinstalled.
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Maighstir: Last I checked, Windows Security Essentials used to come up pretty good in various tests.
Is that so? Sorry then. My knowledge must be outdated because I haven't even tried it for a long time, preferring to rely on other antiviruses for the last few years, mainly Kaspersky's.

MS's antivirus wasn't all that great when I checked it a long time ago. But it's good to know that they were doing something to improve it since then because we could really do with better security.
Post edited September 27, 2019 by joppo
Posted September 27, 2019
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madjarov42: I hadn't thought of that, you're probably right. (Can't confirm yet because I'm not home.)
It's probably Avast. It got so aggressive a few years ago with false positives I had to switch to something a little less zealous.
Posted September 28, 2019
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Maighstir: Last I checked, Windows Security Essentials used to come up pretty good in various tests.
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joppo: Is that so? Sorry then. My knowledge must be outdated because I haven't even tried it for a long time, preferring to rely on other antiviruses for the last few years, mainly Kaspersky's.

MS's antivirus wasn't all that great when I checked it a long time ago. But it's good to know that they were doing something to improve it since then because we could really do with better security.
Yeah, MS protection is getting top marks recently, beating the large majority of paid products if security is all you're looking at. What some (sadly fewer and fewer) of the other products provide is options and control and monitoring. The streamlined, set and forget, "we just keep your system safe" ones are getting quite pointless.
Posted September 28, 2019
It does sound rather like security software is the culprit, given that it is only the exes that are getting targeted and nothing else.
Posted September 28, 2019
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madjarov42: I hadn't thought of that, you're probably right. (Can't confirm yet because I'm not home.)
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paladin181: It's probably Avast. It got so aggressive a few years ago with false positives I had to switch to something a little less zealous.
I second this. Avast ate up two of my .exe files from GOG (everything else was kept, thankfully) so I just added an exception to my whole "GOG Games" folder and hasn't happened again.
Post edited September 28, 2019 by ConsulCaesar
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General discussionEXE launcher files keep disappearing.(11 posts)(11 posts)
(11 posts)