Steam & vista no longer???

[DeViAnT\gAmEr]

hi everybody, first of all let me jus say thanx for reading this post, even if u dnt reply.

I am running 64 bit OEM Vista Ultimate, and have been since jan 28th. I have had a range of problems, bbut most have been fixed/worked around, but i cant seem to sort this 1.

As a gamer (specifically CS:S) i rely heavily on Valves Steam app, and (thankfully) this has been working fine since day one. However last week sometym it stopped working, when "connecting to account".

I have uninstalled/reinstalled/system restored/restored backups/ran spyware and registry cleaners/uninstalled/reinstalled updates, but to no avail.

Anyone had the same problem/got ne suggestions?

Here is the precise procedure:

launch steam, (online or offline mode), steam updates, steam pops up saying "connecting to account xxxx", then a windows box pops up saying "steam has stopped workin, windows is checking for a solution to the problem", before finally making me click to close the app.

Note: Steam.exe *32 is still present in task manager processes, despite being closed.

PLEASE HELP, has someone stolen/hacked/removed my account?

il will post if i discover anything new.

I will u/l a screenshot (plz note that hide ip is NOT running, and i have made no changes to any firewall/router configurations or installed any new software.

Thanks agen, all comments are appreciated, no matter how irrelevant/unhelpful they seem!

Rich

[lasher511]

I know how it feels when steam does not work. I currently have steam running on an external hard drive on a windows XP partition on my mac. This works really well by the way i can't see any performance loss as a result of doing this despite what i thought would happen when i first tried this. Although seems i have run into a problem with the latest update and not being able to apply a skin properly and i don't know if that has anything to do with the external hard drive. Anyway if anyone else runs steam off an external hard drive like me and knows what might be the problem then let me know.

As for your problem it does not look like steam is the problem infact its more likely that its windows vista having a spack about something. I would suggest disableing any windows vista security features and firewalls to see if this makes any difference. It does not sound like someone has stolen your account otherwise it would come up and say something along the lines of "username and password are incorrect".

Also you might like to try this link http://support.steampowered.com/cgi-bin/steampowered.cfg/php/enduser/home.php
and see if you can find a solution to your problem on there.

goodluck with your problem,

Lasher

[DeViAnT\gAmEr]

hey

thankx for the reply, now that u mention it there was an upate to the steam client last week wasnt ther? and thats about the time it stopped working, is there anyway maybe to rollback/uninstall the update? i might try deleting the skins too, may help.

thanx again,

Rich

[DeViAnT\gAmEr]

edit: deleting skins (thus restoring the default) has not helped.

PS nice move puttin it on the external HDD, now u can take your games with u (without the hassles of reinstalls, and losing saved games etc). sweet.

Rich

[lasher511]

Yeah that was the idea behind it to begin with so that i could take it with me. originally i had it on my ipod but 18gb of steam files does not leave much room for music and now i dont need it on the run so much. The main reason that i have steam(and other games) on my external hard drive now is so that i only need a 10gb windows partition on my mac and i dont eat into any more space on my OSX partition then i need to. Basically i like to have as much room on my primary OS as possible.

Incase anyone is wondering im using a Macbook Pro 2.33ghz core 2 duo with 2gb of Ram and my external hard disc is a lacie 320gb (dunno the model but the one designed by porche) USB i can only assume that something like a firewire 400 or a firewire 800 hard drive would work even better for this.

[DeViAnT\gAmEr]

Nice setup man, wish i could afford a mac book pro! Are u using boot camp by the way? my bros thinking about using it and wants to know if there are any probs with it.

Iv just downloaded steam on my girlfriends laptop, and i managed to load steam fine even after all the updates.

Shes running 32 bit Vista Hoe Premium, so i wonder if it could be somethin to do with 64 bit support and the latest update?

Ill keep trying anyway :)

thanx,

rich

[lasher511]

the MBP is quite expensive but most of the PC laptops that even came close to matching specs were like a thousand dollars more. Although im still $2000 in debt for it i can safely say that they are well worth the money if you can afford one infact was probably the best $4000 i ever spent.

yeah im using boot camp although im gonna get VMware running so that i can go less intensive windows tasks without having to reboot my whole computer. Its pretty sweet VMware will acctually run your windows boot camp partition. So far no problems with boot camp although it took me a while to work out how to get back into OSX doh! apart from that its awsome and i have had no problems with it.

I know you have bought vista and all and it is very pretty but have you considered maybe going back to XP pro until a bit more compatibility with certain programs has been built into it. Would probably even give you alot better performance on the setup you have there and you would be able to run steam again. The other option is if you dont want to give up vista you could swap to 32-bit HP untill more support is avalible.

[tacman]

Hey I think I found a solution to your problem, infact the same thing happened to me as well. I was using Vista 32bit Home Basic edition, and i installed steam using my software cd (condition zero). It worked for one day, and then just quit. I reinstalled steam, and my os and still did not fix the problem, so i just decided to uninstall steam from my system via the uninstall in the steam folder. And went to http://www.steampowered.com/v/index.php?area=getsteamnow&cc=US to download steam installer. just ran it from the website, and now im back to playing counter-strike again. I hope this helps.

[DeViAnT\gAmEr]

Hey I think I found a solution to your problem, infact the same thing happened to me as well. I was using Vista 32bit Home Basic edition, and i installed steam using my software cd (condition zero). It worked for one day, and then just quit. I reinstalled steam, and my os and still did not fix the problem, so i just decided to uninstall steam from my system via the uninstall in the steam folder. And went to http://www.steampowered.com/v/index.php?area=getsteamnow&cc=US to download steam installer. just ran it from the website, and now im back to playing counter-strike again. I hope this helps.

Hello ! id like to start off by saying that iv uninstalled and reinstalled so many times now, but never once in the precise way u have descibed, iv just tried it and voila! it works! thank you sooo much mate.

I hope i havent spoken too soon given that css is still updating, and i havent actually played anything yet, but i havent even seen the steam GUI in soo long that im grateful to u for gettin me this far!

Thanks again mate, ill keep this post updated as to whether or not the game plays.

**ps add me to xfire if u wanna game sumtym (rade0nfighter)

[DeViAnT\gAmEr]

Great news - it works! i have rebooted several times now and i can still play! thankx man, i really do appreciate it.

[pty]

Shes running 32 bit Vista Hoe Premium...

Don't let her know that you're saying such things on the internet!

/i am immature.

[tacman]

Yeah man. I felt the pain of not being able to play myself. I figured i would just try something as silly as that. and it worked :D

[DeViAnT\gAmEr]

I have had a couple of people contact me about this issue. From what i can gather, it appears to be a registry issue - the entries relating to your steam folder. Reinstalling using this link...

http://www.steampowered.com/v/index.php?area=getsteamnow&cc=US

...creates a different folder path than the steam installer you would get on a CD/DVD, thus creating new registry enties that hopefully wont become corrupt.

Several people have told me that MS HAS RELEASED A PATCH VIA WINDOWS UPDATE THAT SHOULD RESOLVE THE PROBLEM WITH NO NEED TO UNINSTALL STEAM!

If you still encounter problems after updating - back up your steam files, uninstall ALL steam apps, then reinstall using the above link. GOOD LUCK

FEEL FREE TO CONTACT ME VIA XFIRE (Rade0nFighter) IF U STILL NEED HELP :)

[DeViAnT\gAmEr]

It happened again, hence the "unsolved" flagging. Im gna retry the fix using a diferent install location.

Has ne1 got ne ideas for a permanent fix? windows update doesnt seem to have helped?

[D.A.T.S.]

man my computer had the same problem and its slow so its installing hope it wors thank you so much for bringing this up

[DeViAnT\gAmEr]

installing into a different folder fixed the problem temporarily, but the latest steam client should be more stable and so I am going to mark this as solved (years later...)