Hard Light Productions Forums

Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: T-Man on October 15, 2006, 04:02:44 pm

Title: Can anyone identify these files?
Post by: T-Man on October 15, 2006, 04:02:44 pm: This is a question to mainly the computer experts amongst us:

I was recently going into my C: drive when i suddenly came across a group of strange files there (see attached picture). According to their file data they've been there since April 09th and were edited recently. I'm really paranoid when it comes to computer security, and i have no idea what these files are. I've searched the net and found nothing on them. I've also tried scanning then with my AntiVirus but according to its report afterwards it hasn't scanned anything.

Does anyone know what they are? If so, are they any danger? I ask here becuase they're near the stif.cfg file for the Descent managment tools and i thought that maybe they were connected.

Thanks
T-Man

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Title: Re: Can anyone identify these files?
Post by: Shadow0000 on October 15, 2006, 04:11:57 pm: Some of the packages of the Home of the Underdogs are full of these files, I have no idea what they are, unless they are some old files used by DOS games.

Do you download something from there ?
Title: Re: Can anyone identify these files?
Post by: Flipside on October 15, 2006, 04:13:02 pm: They look like one of your games has missed when saving, .gam suggests a save-game from one of them.
Title: Re: Can anyone identify these files?
Post by: Tyrian on October 15, 2006, 07:46:54 pm: I think I know what those files are. They aren't game saves. I'll PM you with the explanation.
Title: Re: Can anyone identify these files?
Post by: Dark RevenantX on October 15, 2006, 10:57:54 pm: They all have different file types. One is a "001" file, another is a "002" file, all the way up to "006". That's one hell of a bad programmer.
Title: Re: Can anyone identify these files?
Post by: Goober5000 on October 16, 2006, 01:58:15 am: Quote from: Dark RevenantX on October 15, 2006, 10:57:54 pm
They all have different file types. One is a "001" file, another is a "002" file, all the way up to "006". That's one hell of a bad programmer.

And what makes you qualified to judge that, hmm?
Title: Re: Can anyone identify these files?
Post by: CP5670 on October 16, 2006, 02:16:15 am: I've been getting the exact same files in that location. I have deleted them a few times but they keep returning. I have done all the spyware and AV checks and nothing turns up (and there are no suspicious processes running). I'm assuming it's just some badly designed game that is putting its temporary data there, as I have seen this sort of thing happen before.

What games have you been playing recently? We probably have something in common.
Title: Case Solved
Post by: T-Man on October 16, 2006, 02:56:00 am: Good news, i have identified the files and they are not harmfull.

even better, i have possibly discovered the identity of Dark RevenantX's "bad programmer"...

MYSELF!!! :lol:

Opening the files in notepad, they contain raw data for a FS_Port FRED mission.

The most likely reason they were created was because i tried to run FS_Port 3.0 on an outdated FS_Open version (3.6.7 IIRC) and it kept crashing. Possibly the data was dumped onto my C: root.

So yeah, i thought i'd post it up so you could spread the world to people like me and CP5670. If you have gam.00# files on your root directory, they're harmless FRED data. Open them up in notepad and they'll look very familiar.

Sorry to bother everyone with a false alarm, and thanks very much for all your advice.