Disappearing games!

[poppett]

I have a laptop with Windows XP. Mostly used for OH`s games which are downloaded to the front page from Spintop purchase emails. He just clicks on the one he wants to play and it is usually simple.

This morning he put the laptop on and only two games are showing, but they were all there yesterday!

The two remaining are ones he played most recently and some of them he hasn`t played for some time.

Any idea where they may be, and how to get them back!

Any helpful suggestions much appreciated, thank you.

[Moonboots]

Looks like the computer has done a desktop cleanup...
Its removes unused items on the desktop....

If this has happened then you should have an "Unused Desktop Shortcuts folder.
Go into the folder.. then there is an option to restore...

[poppett]

Thanks Moonboots. You are probably right.

Have managed to get everything back on the front page now, however one of the two games which had remained "Fairway solitaire" is loading so far then coming up with............

Errror loading bitmap
Data/Graphics/title/snapshots/lady_pic_36553975.png
(press any key)

Have tried technical support for the game provider but reply could take 48hours!!

Any other brilliant ideas dear neighbour?

[Moonboots]

This just looks like the image isnt been found in the current folder.
Maybe the shortcut isnt pointing in the correct folder for the game to work...

[dx100uk]

there are know issue with .png images with various things in widows

create a new user on the laptop and see if the icons are there for the new user
if your OH is the only user of this laptop and does not have to 'log-in' to the pc when powered up, this should work

let me know then we'll go from there.

dx

[poppett]

No log-in required for games.

Have tried three different downloads for the free game (with option to purchase) and it gets right to the start of the game, then comes up with the same message mentioned before.

Moonboots spent two hours at it last night to no avail, thanks MB.

I am off to hunt for the credit card statement from the original purchase in 2007 as the email confirmation has gone missing now along with the original game.

That wide blue yonder has a lot to answer for.

Next suggestion please, preferably in plain speak as i am pc stoopid

[dx100uk]

create a new user on the laptop and see if the icons are there for the new user

dx

[poppett]

Many thanks to Bobinovich for taking the time to get my OH`s game back. I have no idea how he did it, but made it look sooooooooo simple........ but I am sure it wasn`t. The man is a lifesaver, with magic fingers!

[Bobinovich]

No problem Poppett. FYI I located the folder the image was missing from and found a few other similary named ones - I copied and renamed one of these to match that of the missing file and the game then started. However it quickly became clear that it was a corrupt user profile within the game which had caused the problem, so I deleted said profile and created a new one, and everything then worked fine.