So I just noticed a few things had vanished from my desktop. Basically a group of shortcuts and a folder that I keep all my driver downloads and other bits and pieces had all just vanished. Rebooted just in case the icons had messed-up, but nope, they're actually gone. All the files in the folder are gone - I did a search (in case they got moved...) and nothing. All the icons/folder were next to each other - so it's like something neatly nuked a particular area of the desktop 
I have two theories:
1.) The cat did it. One of them really likes to walk across my keyboard and has done random things before. Maybe he managed to drag select this bunch of stuff, then walked on the shift and delete keys (they are virtually next to each other on my keyboard...) and, pffft, they're gone.
2.) Right before I noticed they had vanished, I was browsing these very forums. I went to make the missus a brew, and when I came back I had three windows open telling me that something was trying to connect to the Internet. It wasn't a security message from antivirus or spyware, just three identical, standard-looking windows telling me that Steam (I think it was Steam) was trying to connect. But they didn't look like Steam dialogue boxes either. I immediately thought I had got a virus or spyware - but I booted into safemode and virus and spyware scans came back clean. I always keep Avast running in the background anyway - and scan for spyware often. I'm very security conscious. My wi-fi is also very secure. I thought maybe the hard disk was on the fritz, but a S.M.A.R.T. check showed everything to be ok, and chkdsk didn't find any corrupt data. But I've never seen these windows that popped up before, so it strikes me as a bit of a coincidence.
Any other ideas?
I have two theories:1.) The cat did it. One of them really likes to walk across my keyboard and has done random things before. Maybe he managed to drag select this bunch of stuff, then walked on the shift and delete keys (they are virtually next to each other on my keyboard...) and, pffft, they're gone.
2.) Right before I noticed they had vanished, I was browsing these very forums. I went to make the missus a brew, and when I came back I had three windows open telling me that something was trying to connect to the Internet. It wasn't a security message from antivirus or spyware, just three identical, standard-looking windows telling me that Steam (I think it was Steam) was trying to connect. But they didn't look like Steam dialogue boxes either. I immediately thought I had got a virus or spyware - but I booted into safemode and virus and spyware scans came back clean. I always keep Avast running in the background anyway - and scan for spyware often. I'm very security conscious. My wi-fi is also very secure. I thought maybe the hard disk was on the fritz, but a S.M.A.R.T. check showed everything to be ok, and chkdsk didn't find any corrupt data. But I've never seen these windows that popped up before, so it strikes me as a bit of a coincidence.
Any other ideas?
