Need some technical help - Reinstalling Steam

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sluff Jun 22, 2015 @ 4:10pm

Yes I've put in a ticket, wondering if I could get separate help here.

I was unable to launch steam, no solutions I found worked and I ended up trying to uninstall and reinstall.

Well I uninstalled it, but when I tried to run the steam installation, it says "close steam before continue."

Apparently I still have the steam folder in the program files after uninstalling, and when I try to delete it I get "this action could not be completed because the file or folder is open in another program." Steam.exe and a few other files are still there.

Task manager doesn't show any steam in processes. When I go to details, steam.exe, steamwebhelper.exe, and another steamwebhelper.exe still show up there, but I'm unable to close them with the message "this operation could not be completed, access is denied." It doesn't work running task manager in administrator mode either.

I have tried restarting my computer, my guess is that the steam bootstrapper loads up with my computer but for whatever reason I've been unable to actually use steam, and when I uninstalled it didn't fully work because steam was technically open.

Need some help, thanks. If there's another place I could take this please lmk

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Showing 1-11 of 11 comments

NydA Jun 22, 2015 @ 5:02pm

Ctrl + Alt + Supp > Task Manager > process > Steam > stop processus

sluff Jun 22, 2015 @ 5:08pm

Originally posted by Nyda:
Ctrl + Alt + Supp > Task Manager > process > Steam > stop processus

Task manager doesn't show any steam in processes. When I go to details, steam.exe, steamwebhelper.exe, and another steamwebhelper.exe still show up there, but I'm unable to close them with the message "this operation could not be completed, access is denied." It doesn't work running task manager in administrator mode either.

Permanent Reverie Jun 22, 2015 @ 5:11pm

Hey,
Try going to Start > Run > type 'msconfig' (without the quotation marks) and you will see a program open up. Click on the boot tab and select to boot in Safe mode. It will prompt you to restart your computer, if it doesn't restart it yourself.

Once in safe mode, go by your normal way of uninstalling steam and re-installing steam with the installer - be aware you may not have network settings (no internet) whilst in Safe mode, all depending on your settings ofcourse.

Once all done, use the same method, go back to Msconfig, into boot options and select the normal boot and restart

Last edited by Permanent Reverie; Jun 22, 2015 @ 5:14pm

sluff Jun 22, 2015 @ 5:18pm

Originally posted by kciN:
Hey Sluff,
Try going to Start > Run > type 'msconfig' (without the quotation marks) and you will see a program open up. Click on the boot tab and select to boot in Safe mode. It will prompt you to restart your computer, if it doesn't restart it yourself.

Once in safe mode, go by your normal way of uninstalling steam and re-installing steam with the installer - be aware you may not have network settings (no internet) whilst in Safe mode, all depending on your settings ofcourse.

Once all done, use the same method, go back to Msconfig, into boot options and select the normal boot and restart

Thanks, supposed to do it with these settings? https://gyazo.com/28468a6ab5ef30493f3358f10217b46a

Permanent Reverie Jun 22, 2015 @ 5:22pm

Yes, alternatively, in Msconfig, go to the start up tab and untick any Steam related items and then reboot, this will ensure that anything steam related wont run when you turn on or restart your computer. If you want it back when you reinstall, go to Steam preferences and tick boot on start up.

sluff Jun 22, 2015 @ 5:43pm

Thank you! I got steam working again. My only other problem is that I've put my steamapps folder back but it still says I have to reinstall all my games. Any fix for that?

edit: I can start games directly (e.g csgo.exe) but I wouldn't be able to join VAC secured servers so I must've done something wrong with the configuration?

Last edited by sluff; Jun 22, 2015 @ 5:45pm

Permanent Reverie Jun 22, 2015 @ 5:45pm

No problem.

Try start the download, it should detect the files and just 100% really quickly. If not, unfortunately you will need to download it all. There's a few guides about this around the net but it differs from set up to set up.

linadius Jun 22, 2015 @ 5:47pm

бла

Permanent Reverie Jun 22, 2015 @ 5:59pm

edit: I can start games directly (e.g csgo.exe) but I wouldn't be able to join VAC secured servers so I must've done something wrong with the configuration? [/quote]
May be because you're not launching them off the client, do you get any error messages when you try join?