Guild Wars 2

I was doing a little computer cleaning a little over an hour ago, CCleaner, virus scan, the works. I noticed that CCleaner had cleaned out an approximate 22k MB, which is incredibly ridiculous for a general trial internet/temp/other things clean. Normally it’s only 400-600 for me. After restarting my computer, I launched GW2 from GW2Setup.exe (will explain why I use that one in the next paragraph.) and it started to download the entire game again. Now, I believe the base game is about 25 GB, so I’m not sure what’s happening right now, whether it’s my mess up or if something else happened.

As for why I launch the game from GW2Setup.exe: GW2.exe does not work for me. And hasn’t for a few months. I don’t know why, I don’t know how, but it suddenly decided to give me the following error:

“C:\Program Files (x86)\Guild Wars 2\Gw2.exe is not a valid Win32 application.”

After that, the only launcher I could find on this site was the Setup, so I downloaded that, and have been using that to launch the game without any issues since. Up until now when the game was removed from my computer. Yes, I’m sure it was removed and not just relocated or something, I noticed a large amount of free space open after I restarted my computer.

If anything is needed, I’ll do what I can to help figure out what just happened. Thanks in advance.

The only thing CCleaner should wipe related to GW2 is it’s browser cache for the TP. It doesn’t go anywhere near where the game is kept.

Why you had to download again, don’t know.

I use Ccleaner all the time and have never had this issue.

maybe you should troubleshoot why base gw2.exe doesn’t work for you in the first place…. gw2setup.exe is first and foremost a setup file.

Gw2Setup.exe is just the launcher by another name, which downloads itself to your
%temp% folder and then asks where you want to install it. In some cases, it doesn’t ask and will bug instead (no play button, can’t login) or simply begin installing to your
%temp% folder. If it was installed to your %temp% folder, that’s why it would have been deleted.

Simply rename Gw2Setup.exe to Gw2.exe to recreate the launcher.

Program Files is a protected directory and not meant to be commonly updated. If you want to install GW2 there, you’re going to have to always run the game as an administrator. Instead, move the Guild Wars 2 folder somewhere else, for example, C:\Games\Guild Wars 2\Gw2.exe.

Been using ccleaner for more years than I can remember and it has never touched GW2 or any other game or application for that matter.

The fact that your original file wasn’t working, should be a sign that something was going on.

Some had had this same issue and reinstalling the game in a new directory seems to fix it try reinstalling or moving to a new folder like C:\Games\Guildwars2 for some reason on some systems installing it to the default directory causes this issue.

Feirlista Xv.1425:

Some had had this same issue and reinstalling the game in a new directory seems to fix it try reinstalling or moving to a new folder like C:\Games\Guildwars2 for some reason on some systems installing it to the default directory causes this issue.

This is likely a Windows 7 user privilege / UAC issue. If the user you are logged in as does not have administrator privileges, many games / programs will likely have setup and even run issues. (The Windows 7 Programs folders are protected by default).

Healix.5819:

Gw2Setup.exe is just the launcher by another name, which downloads itself to your
%temp% folder and then asks where you want to install it. In some cases, it doesn’t ask and will bug instead (no play button, can’t login) or simply begin installing to your
%temp% folder. If it was installed to your %temp% folder, that’s why it would have been deleted.

Simply rename Gw2Setup.exe to Gw2.exe to recreate the launcher.

Program Files is a protected directory and not meant to be commonly updated. If you want to install GW2 there, you’re going to have to always run the game as an administrator. Instead, move the Guild Wars 2 folder somewhere else, for example, C:\Games\Guild Wars 2\Gw2.exe.

Ah, okay. That makes alot more sense. I’ll try renaming it and moving it. Thanks.

Brother Grimm.5176:

Feirlista Xv.1425:

Some had had this same issue and reinstalling the game in a new directory seems to fix it try reinstalling or moving to a new folder like C:\Games\Guildwars2 for some reason on some systems installing it to the default directory causes this issue.

This is likely a Windows 7 user privilege / UAC issue. If the user you are logged in as does not have administrator privileges, many games / programs will likely have setup and even run issues. (The Windows 7 Programs folders are protected by default).

Windows 7 does like to give me user privilege issues even though my computer only has one user profile, and that’s me, the admin, with all the administrative rights and privileges. Gonna have to look into that as well if it’s possible that might be causing issues for me here.

Thanks for the input, everyone.

I think you pretty much answered your own question. If you were having issues with the game launching but never determined why, you probably should have nipped that in the bud and done a fresh re-installation of the game.

CCLeaner does not delete game folders unless you tell it to by selecting folders. You need to check what you have it selected to delete and where your game files are also installed. If you installed them to Temp Folders, that is on you.

As far as administrative rights go, it gives you issues because it still verifies permissions as an extra safety measure. You can assign executable files (Shortcuts) to always open as an administrator by going into properties, shortcut tab, advanced and selecting the box to always open as an administrator.

Best,
Van