Steam won't open due to a compatibilty issue.

[Winter673]

A) I've been using the same windows 11 PC for a while. What's the compatibility issue?
B) I followed the suggested steps precisely and problem persists.
C) There was no report log to add to the Steam Ticket.

Can you fine folks help resolve this faster than the Steam Ticket Team? It has been at least 6 hours since submitting.

[ReBoot]

What "compatibility issue"?

[Winter673]

that's the thing, it doesnt say.

"Windows is currently running Steam in Windows Compatibility Mode which can cause issues with some Steam features and running games. Please follow the instructions below to remove compatibility mode."

Then it provides a how to disable Compatibility Mode link

I did the things it said. Ensured nothing checked off, run as administer and make changes for all users for both steam.exe and steamwebhelper.exe

[ReBoot]

There's a registry key storing compatibility settings. Close Steam, search the registry for steam.exe,delete the key that looks like it's holding compatibility settings, start Steam.

[Winter673]

I admit i'm not so strong in regedit, but using edit>find "steam" gave me no results that I understood.

[ReBoot]

Don't look for 'steam', look for 'steam.exe'. As for "results I understood", this stuff is named in plain English so when you find something, read, in English, what's around it. Compatibility may be abbreviated "compat", otherwise, it mostly boils down to parsing English.

[Winter673]

the only result
"c:\program files (x86)\steam\steam.exe" steam://rungameid/438100

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by Winter673:

the only result
"c:\program files (x86)\steam\steam.exe" steam://rungameid/438100

That's the first result, not the only one. Keep on searching. The easiest way to do that, is pressing F3.

[Winter673]

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\Steam.exe.FriendlyAppName" the only result not mentioning a game

hitting f3 again just highlights this one.

[ReBoot]

Looks like you're searching wrong. Even without compatibility, there are more entries. I could whip up a script to automate the search procedure but I'm frankly too lazy, especially since you can search yourself:
bing.com/search?q=windows+registry+where+compatibility+is+stored
I've just tried it, first search result tells you the exact location to look into.

[Winter673]

I've just tried it. All it showed me was a download tool as top result or how to find it on older versions of windows. Just incase there was no change between versions, I looked following the older versions directory, no dice.

I run windows 11 home. Got an exact link for that that doesn't ask me to download something?

reason for not wanting to download: I don't want to clutter up pc with 1 time use programs.

[Satoru]

Are you sure you're doing it for the exe directly and not the shortcut

[Winter673]

if we are talking about the compatibility fix suggested by steam:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\Steam.exe
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\bin\steamwebhelper.exe

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by Winter673:

I've just tried it. All it showed me

Interesting. The first search result shows paths:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers
and
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers