Random windows programs deleted

[CalifLove]

Hello all, I've been having the strangest problems for a couple of months now and cannot find any help what-so-ever.

The issue is this - Randomly, windows programs get deleted from the windows directory. Not shortcuts, not links..but the actual executables. Example, today, I turned on my computer from hibernate and noticed that the Remote Desktop connection program can no longer be found. SAme with soundvl.exe, solitair, hearts, notepad.exe etc... It seems only files that are within or below the Windows directory get deleted, however I am almost certain they did not get deleted all at the same time.

Have any of you ran into this at all? I run Avast Antivirus Suite, have Spybot and adaware running. No trojans or the like found. I am completely at a loss.

Any help is much appreciated!

 

[4Ryan6]

Hello all, I've been having the strangest problems for a couple of months now and cannot find any help what-so-ever.

The issue is this - Randomly, windows programs get deleted from the windows directory. Not shortcuts, not links..but the actual executables. Example, today, I turned on my computer from hibernate and noticed that the Remote Desktop connection program can no longer be found. SAme with soundvl.exe, solitair, hearts, notepad.exe etc... It seems only files that are within or below the Windows directory get deleted, however I am almost certain they did not get deleted all at the same time.

Have any of you ran into this at all? I run Avast Antivirus Suite, have Spybot and adaware running. No trojans or the like found. I am completely at a loss.

Any help is much appreciated!

I run Avast Antivirus Suite, have Spybot and adaware running. No trojans or the like found. I am completely at a loss.

Sounds like a Trojan to me!

Trojans are quite viscious and ther first duty is usually to make your AV and spyware protection programs overlook its dirty deeds, leaving it free to cause all kinds of behind the scenes damage, you scan and your programs say you're clean but actually you're not, you could be seriously infected and think you are perfectly safe.


Looks like all your protection is free software, and a lot of the free is the easiest to obtain and find ways around, maybe you should try sneaking up on the problem and blindside it with something unexpected, like another AV suite, especially one that scans your computers memory for virus's before it will install, like AVG does and AVG is higher rating protection than Avast is anyway.

Try downloading AVGs 30 day fully functional free trial and installing it but you'll need to uninstall Avast first you don't want 2 AV programs running at once, or 2 firewalls for that matter either, fully install http://www.grisoft.com/ww.download-trial, and run its full system scan, if it also gives you a clean bill of health then maybe you have some defective hardware like memory modules or HDD, but eliminate the virus possibility first if AVG finds virus then have it disinfect and repair if it can, it may just quarantine if the virus is in vital system files.

Do that and post back what you discover.

I'm suggesting this initial route of action because I've had these virus in the past myself and your symptoms sound very familiar, and AdAware and Nortons AV were disabled from recognizing the Trojan and it may be the same in your case.

If you get a clean bill of health then we'll address running hardware diagnostics to see if theres a problem there. Ryan