Games missing from programs?

Question

I have a Dell laptop which runs on XP and all of a sudden my games are no longer there. When I click the START-PROGRAMS-GAMES, it says empty folder. So I cannot find those card games that previously used to be there. How can I restore them?

Answer 1

First check that if the games r available on your computer, to do so-
Open drive C:
Open Folder named “Windows” (if it shows warning just click “show hidden files” from left pan.
Open “System32” folder. Here check for your games, if you find it- copy it where you want, or right click on your game file, click “send to” then click “desktop (create shortcut). It will make shortcut on your desktop. But if the files are not there, you have to bring it back, to do so-

Click start, then Control panel
On control panel window open “Add or remove programs”. Then
Click “add/remove windows components”
Select “Accessories and utilities” then click “Details” button
Click check mark on games
Click ok, and then click next.
Hope you have the XP CD.
Insert it on CD drive. It will reinstall your games again.

Answer 2

First you can find the games in C:\WINDOWS\System32. They go by the names mshearts.exe, freecell.exe, winmine.exe, and sol.exe. If you have pinball and spider solitaire on it too (the games depend on the version of windows) they're named PINBALL.exe and spider.exe. Pinball (if you should have it) is found in this folder instead: C:\Program Files\Windows NT\Pinball.exe. Now don't worry if you don't see the exe part. Now go to: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Games and make shortcuts to those games if you want to access the games from start - accessories - games.

Answer 3

you might try to do a system restore back to an earlier date --- goto start then all programs then accessories then system tools then system restore and restore it to an earlier date before you noticed the file was empty

Answer 4

Check the recycle bin they might be there if not do a search if you can't find them they're lost so sorry.