Programs disaapear with no warning

New user of 8.1 here ... The other day I tried installing a couple games that installed and ran just fine on XP. Shortly into the installation they'd just stop and disappear, no warnings or error message. Went through Blizzard support who walked me through a whole litany of things to try, all to no avail. Games simply will not install for whatever reason.

So I thought that was limited to Blizzard games but today I fired up my CAD program, which is essential for my livelihood. To my dismay it does the same thing, at a random point while I am working on a design it will just up and disappear just like the game setup, no crash warning or messages, just closes down and goes away as if I shut it down myself.
Am going to have to get to the bottom of this else I'll have to try another OS like 7, in lieu of any error messages or hints whats causing this, was hoping someone else has had similar symptoms and has found the cure.

Computer is a Dell XPS 8700, all dirvers are up to date.

hello ,its a long way from XP to Win8.1 for some software ,and some will just not function ,don't have a cure for you ,but a suggestion ,did you try installing in compatibility mode. right click the install\setup file and choose properties then compatibility mode, try xp mode or win7 mode .


I have some software that come from the early 2000 like adobe photo shop ,and a sound editing tool .and more and i they seem to work for me.
make sure you have the Microsoft c ++ redistributables install as seen in attachment they help when running older software

This program is from 2014, I would think it was designed with 8 in mind, I'll go to that programs forum and see if anyone has experienced these issues.