Windows user switching closes client, breaking family sharing

[Owls]

My children tend to borrow games from my account with family sharing, by having them and I logged in on the Windows PC and switching user. However, recently the steam client seems to exit when switching users, which seems to make it impossible for sharing to work. We're all logged in - automatically when restarting the client - but that doesn't seem to be sufficient.

Has anyone else encountered this issue and solved it? As far as I know, I'm not using the new sharing beta.

I've double-checked that I'm sharing with them and with users on that machine in general - and it's been working fine for years. Not sure what changed.

[Ogami]

Honestly the old Family Share system has been bugged since last year with randomly deleting set up connections. It got very frustrating. Steam seems to have completely given up on patching any bugs in the system since it will soon be replaced by the new "Steam Families" system.

I actually would recommend switching to the Steam Families BETA and your children too.
The new system is way easier to setup and maintain. Basically you create a Steam family and then can invite up to 5 other people to it. Everyone in the group shares automatically with everyone else.
There are also no gameplay restrictions anymore, everyone can play at the same time a game from the same shared libary and even offline.

Also invites to the family are much easier, you just send them out via Steam and when they accept they are in the family. No need to log into different accounts or authorize a system for Family Share.

Maybe give the Steam Families FAQ a read and decide if you want to set one up.
https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/054C-3167-DD7F-49D4

Like i already wrote, the old family share system will be deactivated anyway as soon as Steam Families leaves BETA which cant be long off anymore.

[ReBoot]

This behavior is a workaround as GabeN still doesn't know Windows is an actual multi-user OS. That said, sharing works with Steam closed for the owner. I've shared games with my GF on my PC with Steam auto-closing for me.

[Owls]

Thank you both. I've moved to the beta which seems to be working for me.

[Big Mac ✅]

how do I fix this exactly?

[Ogami]

Originally posted by Big Mac ✅:

how do I fix this exactly?

Fix what? The old family share system is gone, now that Steam Families is out of BETA its the only way to share games.

[Connie]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.