JohnChod
Member
Has anyone had any problems with the main executable files for Alawar games from GGAOTD disappearing? I was going through my list of GGAOTD downloads looking for something to play, and I found 4 games that showed broken links. All 4 were Alawar games. When I navigated to the folder the games were located in, it appeared that all files were present except for the .exe file.
Any thoughts?
Thanks.
LeKanaw
Member
Bonjour John
Dunno if its the same problem, but once A² went really crazy and ate «A LOT» of my .exe and not only from GOTD - SW & Games!! And I mean a lot as in ~120!!!!
The folders had all the other files in it, just not the .exe!!!
I went into a fit, as you can imagine!!
I managed to get some back, some not.
A couple of weeks later had a major break down on the PC, so never really understood what had happened.
Also, several more knowledge members than I have said that any aggressive cleaning of the registry does that.
Hope this helps.
But you should wait for one of our gurus, see if they have a solution.
Peace
Mangoette
JohnChod
Member
Thanks. I will wait for additional replies.
I have not ever really done any registry cleaning, so I don't think that's the answer.
What is A2?
Anyway, at this point, I think it's just Alawar games from GGAOTD. I'll have to look to see if any other executables are gone, but I have had no issues running the stuff I usually do. I'll have to look at the stuff I run less frequently.
BakerBob
Member
John, I had the same type problem a while back, I was running a "free" anti-virus program and it deleted a game .exe file as a "dangerous" file. Luckly I had the same program on another computer and was able to copy the file and save the game. I think the A2 that Mangoette was referring to was A Squared Anti Virus program...do you use it by chance ? Hope your other programs are OK.
Bob
AlexSJ
Member
Yeah, I remember that time when the Scan from A Squared went all crazy and from one update to another, many downloads from GOTD were suddenly a high risk. I almost fell of my chair when the scan showed so many highly dangerous files ...
One reason to not let the program just delete everything it finds.
In JohnChod case it could be some other antivirus, however, he might be able to download those games again from Alawar, even as a demo. If he installs them under Returnil, he can save the exe files he needs to copy them later in the unprotected directory and they might just be full versions again.
The Alawar games keep their registration info in the registry, so just installing the demo will probably overwrite that info and won't do the trick. An alternative would be to restore the previous registry with Erunt.
Pura vida, AlexSJ
JohnChod
Member
Thanks for the replies all.
I do not use A squared anti-virus. (I found out what that was after posting the question. Should have checked myself first.)
The only AV I've ever used on this particular machine is McAfee.
It doesn't look like I've lost any other stuff - at least not that I've found yet.
I haven't ever played around with Returnil or any other virtual machines. I tried re-downloading one of the games, but, of course, it reverted to the demo. Do you think I can download on another machine and just copy the .exe to the other machine? It appears the registry entries are intact.
AlexSJ
Member
Hello John
I would think that would do the trick since you are only missing the exe file.
Still, check out Erunt. It can be set to save the registry on start of the pc and then if you loose registration info due to an update, you can very easily revert back to your registry at the beginning of the day. It works like a charm on XP, Vista is a bit of a hazzle though.
Pura vida, AlexSJ
hello, JohnChod...
i haven't been posting much lately, but you said the magic word: "McAfee"...
McAfee false positives wiped out many of my programs (both purchased & giveaway)...in some cases i did not let my laptop update after the carnage, & if the program was installed i'd copy the file & move it to my desktop program files after McAfee updated again...if i hadn't run a registry cleaner, & they'd fixed the false positive problem, sometimes i got it back...
other times McAfee decided it was a trojan, & automatically deleted the program beyond recovery............and it always seemed to come in batches...
check your McAfee logs & see if anything was declared a trojan...i sent reports to McAfee & software developers reporting the issues, hoping for a fix (the fix did not always happen, but i am sure they were 99.9% -at least- false positives)...
prior rant here: http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/4767/page/2
good luck...
Whiterabbit-uk
Games Guru
Provided you haven't done any registry clean ups you should just be able to reinstall the games. Go over to Alawar and find the relevant games. They don't have a good search engine, so if you can't find some of the games google them with alawar attached to the search. That should usually take you to the appropriate page.
So long as the registry entry remains intact you can reinstall the game and it should still show as a full version. If the game shows as a time limited demo I'm afraid you've lost the registry entry as well and the game will not be recoverable. Unless alwar decide to give more games away (which I think unlikely, because I wrote to them over a year ago thanking them for their run of free games and they said they would not be doing it again in the 'near' future. (I don't know what constitiutes near future lol)
regards
Whiterabbit
p.s.
sorry I'm not 100% at the moment.... I meant to add:
That may not work, Stephen! I'm still waiting to hear from them why Gamebox shows so many of my games (including many that I got from their freebie of the month with Gamebox) as demo. If they're not sure if it's full or demo, a re-install may not solve the problem!
JohnChod
Member
Hey, thanks everybody!
I've been on a business trip and haven't had a chance to do much of anything.
Violet - I've used McAfee for years and have never had any issues. I've got it set to delete files only after I review - no auto deletes, so I doubt that is the issue. But, you never know!
White Rabbit - I'm going to assume that re-downloading and installing replaced any existing registry entries, because the one I tried only shows up as a demo.
I will try to download on another machine this weekend and just copy over the executables. I'll let you know if I was successful or not.
JohnChod
Member
Copying the .exe from games downloaded to another machine DID NOT WORK.
When I try to run the program, I get a message that wrapper.dll cannot be found and that reinstalling may fix this problem. I do not see any wrapper.dll files anywhere - not on the other machine I downloaded to or even in any of my other still functional Alawar GGOTD. Rats!
I lost the .exe from Theseus Return of the Hero and I was able to copy that back in and run it. That's a Sigma Team game - not an Alawar game. But, I also just noticed that Theseus is now Freeware so that might be why that worked.
Guess I'm just out of luck on the other Alawar games I lost.
John,
The wrapper.dll file may be hidden. Try turning on the option to view hidden and system files. See if that helps.
Diane
Whiterabbit-uk
Games Guru
Hi John Chod. When installing a demo from alawar, they do not overwrite any registration details. I've tested it with several of my Alawar games (that I purchased). firstly I manually removed the game folders (using a file removal tool or uninstaller will remove the registration details as well), then reinstalled the demos of each of the games I removed and they were all still registered. The registration details cannot be present in the registry any more.
Have you run any type of registry cleaning tool recently, or in the past since you last tried playing the games.
Which games have you lost?
Finally you could always contact Alawar and say you have several of theirames which no longer work. Tell them you can not afford to purchase the games and you may find they are quite amenable to giving you some of the games. It helps to have written comments about several of their games and joined the game club.
regards
Whiterabbit
JohnChod
Member
Dragon and Rabbit - thanks for the additional info.
I always have hidden files visible. I checked just to make sure.
The games I lost were Arctic Quest (that's the one that I tried downloading the demo for and found that it was, in fact, registered as a time-limited demo.), Crystalix, Snowy Space Trip, and Tiny Worlds. For the last three, I downloaded demos on another machine and copied over the .exe. I could not run any of the games.
Once again, I have never run a registry cleaner and do not have any programs active that might do so automatically.
Thanks again for your comments. If I find a solution, I'll post.
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