Windows 10, I can't download Steam

[SurDandy]

When I installed Steam, everything went smoothly, all my software were running fine. Everything was installed correctly, I was actually surprised that my desktop was pretty much the same.

However, when I tried opening Steam, I was met with an error message. I figured I needed to redownload Steam or something cause I have a new OS now that I upgraded from Windows 7.

Unfortunately things did not go as I planned. No matter how many times I try to redownload steam, I keep getting this error message.

C:\Users\-myname-\Downloads\SteamSetup.exe

File system error (-1073741819)

I don't know how to try to resolve this, no matter how much I search it seemed like I was the only one experiencing this problem. I have no idea how to fix this, so I was hoping someone has some answers.

I know there is Steam Tile in the Windows Store, but that is such a bad app, all it does is display my games in an obnoxiously big screen in big images, there are no tabs, no stores, community, profile. Not only that, I exited out of it and I can't get back into it, it keeps saying it can't find my profile no matter how many times I put the right one in.

I've tried restarting my computer, deleting/uninstalling steam, running the setup as Administrator, none of them work.

All thats left from steam are my SteamApps that have my games and data downloaded from them. So if someone can help me out with this, give me some answers or something, i'd greatly appreciate it.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Just copy Steam over from Windows.old
then run the Steam.exe from it "as Admin"

[SurDandy]

Originally posted by Bad-Motha:

Just copy Steam over from Windows.old
then run the Steam.exe from it "as Admin"

unfortunately I already tried that. I had steam installed in another drive. I tried running steam.exe as admin but it still didn't work, which is why I uninstalled it. Actually, even when I tried running Uninstall.exe, that wouldn't work either.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

All u need is this:

Steam.exe (application)
Steamapps (your games folder)
Userdata (cloud sync and other steam related user data)
SSFN#### (file used for SteamGuard; copy this to avoid a trading/market cooldown; as without it, u may have another/new SteamGuard trigger due to new/different device; which anytime u reinstall or change OS; it will act as a new device.

Make your own folders on C drive; like "Games" and then a "Steam" sub-folder; then copy the above files to there. So it ends up like C:\Games\Steam\Steam.exe (and the sub-folders)

Running that Steam.exe by right clicking it and clicking Run As Admin should install it and trigger the rest of the Client files to download into where ever that Steam.exe resides.

If you try to just run Steam from another OS drive it might not work. Especially if your old OS was say, Win7. As Win8 & 10 handle User Accounts differently; and your old Win7 folders won't have the same security; thus running things from that kind of OS Drive/Folder structure might prove to be an issue on Win8 or 10.

Never run things that are backed up into the Windows.old folder structure. If you want files from that structure, copy them out of there and into where u need them to actually reside.

[SurDandy]

Originally posted by Bad-Motha:

All u need is this:

Steam.exe (application)
Steamapps (your games folder)
Userdata (cloud sync and other steam related user data)
SSFN#### (file used for SteamGuard; copy this to avoid a trading/market cooldown; as without it, u may have another/new SteamGuard trigger due to new/different device; which anytime u reinstall or change OS; it will act as a new device.

Make your own folders on C drive; like "Games" and then a "Steam" sub-folder; then copy the above files to there. So it ends up like C:\Games\Steam\Steam.exe (and the sub-folders)

Running that Steam.exe by right clicking it and clicking Run As Admin should install it and trigger the rest of the Client files to download into where ever that Steam.exe resides.

If you try to just run Steam from another OS drive it might not work. Especially if your old OS was say, Win7. As Win8 & 10 handle User Accounts differently; and your old Win7 folders won't have the same security; thus running things from that kind of OS Drive/Folder structure might prove to be an issue on Win8 or 10.

Never run things that are backed up into the Windows.old folder structure. If you want files from that structure, copy them out of there and into where u need them to actually reside.

That sounds like it could work, if I had Steam installed. the problem i'm having is that it's not letting me install Steam itself. No matter how many times I try, it keeps giving me an error message. I uninstalled Steam because it was giving me trouble like that.

i'm just trying to run Steamsetup.exe over and over again but it gives me the same error message listed above.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

U have Steam from your other OS, correct? That is all u will need. Never need to "install" it.

Steam Client is one of the very few apps that can work like that. All u need is the Steam.exe

[SurDandy]

Originally posted by Bad-Motha:

U have Steam from your other OS, correct? That is all u will need. Never need to "install" it.

Steam Client is one of the very few apps that can work like that. All u need is the Steam.exe

no as I said, I tried opening steam when I finished upgrading to windows 10 but it wouldn't open and I was receiving an error message, despite running in admin.

I mean, I shouldn't be running into this problem just to reinstall Steam but I keep getting that error message and I have been unable to reinstall Steam as of yet.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

This is why "Upgrade" is not a good option. Anything from your previous OS could be the result of such issues.

Best bet is this then; go to where Steam is located and for now, rename that Steam folder

So for example; if Steam Client is located in: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam < Rename "Steam" to something else; such as "Old_Steam"

Now go to C:\ and make a new folder called Steam.
Go back to that old Steam folder; right click Steam.exe and click COPY
Go to C:\Steam and click PASTE
Now right click Steam.exe in C:\Steam and click "Run As Admin"

Again, this is a way to test, for you... If that works I can help u further.

However, if your Steam Client is having that issue; u can rest assured most likely alot of other previously installed stuff will to.

[Numb-Tung]

try and do a fresh install of steam, then change ownership of the steam folder to you not windows. This is just a thought I had bud.

this article explains it:
http://winaero.com/blog/how-to-take-ownership-and-get-full-access-to-files-and-folders-in-windows-10/

[Dusk of Oolacile]

It's your OS upgrade being broken. Either do a clean install, or try:
1. run chkdsk on all drives (in full mode)
2. run icacls to reset all NTFS permissions.

(Google the details if these tools aren't familiar for you.)

[SurDandy]

Hey guys, doing a Clean Install seemed to do the trick. I was able to run SteamSetup.exe just fine after I ran the clean install. So yes the OS upgrade is incredably broken.

Thank you for all your advice.

Games are running fine, things run smoothly, aside from that upgrade problem, Windows 10 seems to work pretty well.

[Numb-Tung]

great news bud

[Roly]

Originally posted by Skydevil10:

Hey guys, doing a Clean Install seemed to do the trick. I was able to run SteamSetup.exe just fine after I ran the clean install. So yes the OS upgrade is incredably broken.

Thank you for all your advice.

Games are running fine, things run smoothly, aside from that upgrade problem, Windows 10 seems to work pretty well.

how do i do the clean install? do i uninstall steam and delete all the steam games? I try to use steamsetup.exe but it doesnt work. i try the regular steam application and it also doesnt work

[SurDandy]

Originally posted by Tronald Dump:

Originally posted by Skydevil10:

Hey guys, doing a Clean Install seemed to do the trick. I was able to run SteamSetup.exe just fine after I ran the clean install. So yes the OS upgrade is incredably broken.

Thank you for all your advice.

Games are running fine, things run smoothly, aside from that upgrade problem, Windows 10 seems to work pretty well.

how do i do the clean install? do i uninstall steam and delete all the steam games? I try to use steamsetup.exe but it doesnt work. i try the regular steam application and it also doesnt work

what I mean by clean install is by litearlly installing Windows 10 from scratch. Which means by doing a factory reset of sorts and installing Windows 10 again. The upgrade install path was broken and messed alot of things up down the way.

you'll need to back up your steamlibrary folder if you want to keep all your installed games safe.