Lost my MS games with SP2

[dchall8]

I loaded SP2 on my children's laptop (brand new HP running XP Home) and now
they have no more games (solitare, spider, hearts, pinball, etc.). I've
searched and they are no longer on the hard drive. How can I get them back?
--
David Hall
San Antonio

[Chuck Davis]

"dchall8" wrote:

> I loaded SP2 on my children's laptop (brand new HP running XP Home) and now
> they have no more games (solitare, spider, hearts, pinball, etc.). I've
> searched and they are no longer on the hard drive. How can I get them back?
> --
> David Hall
> San Antonio

David,

Something else has caused you to loose those programs, not the installation
of SP2. I personally have installed SP2 on both of my home computers and the
games are still there with the statistics still intact for Spider and
Freecell. Our computer club has installed SP2 on 15 of its 24 computers with
no loss of games.

The new Windows Firewall may be blocking access to the internet for
interactive games. For an excellent article on resolving these issues visit:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/games/expert/durham_gamesp2.mspx

Good luck

[Malke]

dchall8 wrote:

> I loaded SP2 on my children's laptop (brand new HP running XP Home)
> and now
> they have no more games (solitare, spider, hearts, pinball, etc.).
> I've
> searched and they are no longer on the hard drive. How can I get them
> back?

Add/Remove Programs Control Panel applet, Windows Components.

Malke
--
MS MVP - Windows Shell/User
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"

[S.Sengupta]

You can reinstall them by the following way:-
Go to Control panel > Add/
Remove programs > Add/ Remove Windows
components > Accessories and Utilities > Games > ok

regards,
ssg MS-MVP
pronetworks.org

dchall8 wrote:

> I loaded SP2 on my children's laptop (brand new HP running XP Home) and now
> they have no more games (solitare, spider, hearts, pinball, etc.). I've
> searched and they are no longer on the hard drive. How can I get them back?

[dchall8]

Okay. I got it. Thanks for your help. The problem I had was this; when I
went to the Start menu looking for games, the folder was there and the games
were listed but the links were to obscure references - definitely not games.

Here's what I did.
1. Reloaded the games from Add/Remove Windows components as described. No
change they still didn't work from the Start menu but at least they were on
the computer.
2. Unloaded them all hoping the degenerate Games folder would disappear
from the Start menu but it didn't.
3. Deleted the Games folder from the start menu and dragged it to the trash.
4. Reloaded the games from Add/Remove. Still no Games folder on the Start
menu.
5. Built a new Games folder with my few favorite game shortcuts and dragged
it to Windows/system32 folder. Dragged that folder onto the Start menu.
Opened it and found games I never put in there and duplicates of the games
that I did put in.
6. Reopened the Games folder in System32 and found only my shortcuts. I
deleted them and checked the Games folder on the Start menu. It looks normal
again and the games listed now open.

It was a little harder than it looked like it might be but the girls should
be happy to play solitare again. Fortunately my girls have not discovered
any other games anywhere.

[Malke]

dchall8 wrote:

> Okay. I got it. Thanks for your help. The problem I had was this;
> when I went to the Start menu looking for games, the folder was there
> and the games were listed but the links were to obscure references -
> definitely not games.
>
> Here's what I did.
> 1. Reloaded the games from Add/Remove Windows components as
> described. No change they still didn't work from the Start menu but
> at least they were on the computer.
> 2. Unloaded them all hoping the degenerate Games folder would
> disappear from the Start menu but it didn't.
> 3. Deleted the Games folder from the start menu and dragged it to the
> trash.
> 4. Reloaded the games from Add/Remove. Still no Games folder on the
> Start menu.
> 5. Built a new Games folder with my few favorite game shortcuts and
> dragged
> it to Windows/system32 folder. Dragged that folder onto the Start
> menu. Opened it and found games I never put in there and duplicates of
> the games that I did put in.
> 6. Reopened the Games folder in System32 and found only my shortcuts.
> I
> deleted them and checked the Games folder on the Start menu. It looks
> normal again and the games listed now open.
>
> It was a little harder than it looked like it might be but the girls
> should
> be happy to play solitare again. Fortunately my girls have not
> discovered any other games anywhere.

I'm glad you got it sorted, but as another poster said, it was unlikely
that SP2 did this. I've installed SP2 on over 100 machines and haven't
had that issue. Be proactive - make sure you have a current antivirus
using updated definitions. Run spyware removal programs like Ad-aware
and Spybot S&D (get from www.majorgeeks.com) regularly.

Thanks for letting us know things are OK now.

Malke
--
MS-MVP Windows User/Shell
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic"