Where did *.exe go?

At the risk of sounding patronising, are you sure it's not just Windows Explorer hiding them? You might have accidentally changed the folder options or something.

I'd check the folders in commandline first before anything else. Go to the command prompt and use the CD drive or folder name command to navigate to somewhere there should be a .exe file then use dir *.exe/p to list them all. At least then you'll know for sure they're actually gone rather than just hidden.

Oh and from a forum discussion like this I found through Google:

Quote:

All I can suggest for the future is if you don't use Windows Script Hosting to turn it off/ uninstall it. Since it allows the use of VBScript and was the original problem with windows browser/mailclient integration. All it takes is one little VBScript and your EXE's get deleted (Although not SHREADED)

Edit:

And this:

Quote:

Well if anyone is reading this thread and is curious as to what happened, it turns out McAfee virus scan went a little awry over the last few days. McAfee released a virus definitions file that caused the virus scan program to misidentify up to 295 files as virii. There was only a 4 hour and 53 minute window where that DAT definitions file was available for download before McAfee caught the problem, but I happened to hit that window. Luckily, McAfee provided a program fix that took all my misindentified files out of quarantine and restored them to their original location.

Are you using McAfee?

Quote:

Well, it's official. Turns out no mystery at all. It was a virus after all. Didn't show up on AVG but Stryder hunch regarding WSH proved absolutely spot on the money - it was a simple script virus after all, thing of it was though because I only have the unit in question on for relatively brief periods of time the virus itself wasn't allowed to progress terribly far terribly quickly - only manifesting itself first off in the peculiar disappearances (deletions I've no doubt) of the third party .exe's outlined before progressing to the main course.

Snapshots, as it were, of what was going on rather getting to see the whole picture.

Backing up work saved expensively last night meant the thing was on for quite a while. Today bastard won't boot meaning it's progressed, finally, to the OS. My guess is the viruses parameters are such as to target .exe's via date of installation. I managed to take a peek at the registry last night and tried deleting keys pertinent to WSH since the actual programme kept regenerating itself - same remained true of the registry keys. You delete them, they come back.

Possibly accounts for all the business regarding the problem concerning the lack of actual restore points.

Jam it back in, in the dark.