How to reset steam settings

[sirmilkybar]

I foolishly changed my settings so that steam would open into big picture mode, without seeing if big picture mode would work. it doesn't.
so now whenever I try to open my steam it instantly closes without giving me any chance to change my settings back.
So my question is: Is there any way to clear all steam settings without losing all of my games and/or steam itself?
Thanks in advance

[Solarys]

My idea is ths: 1.Find a way to put ALL of your games to the D: drive (not recommended) or an external memory drive (recommended). 2.Open the client service and ask your question. 3.If 2 didn't work, if you have a Windows computer reboot your computer. While its booting up peck f8 hotkey endlessly until you see the choices to repair you computer and the two safe mode choices. Pick repair your computer and when thescreen returns select System Restore (THIS WILL AFFECT ALL OTHER PROGRAMS so don't do something like install a tf2 theme for Google Chrome after having that problem with steam or just installing a program after that problem). Then, select your desired time to restore to (make sure it was before the problem) and click whatever coresponds to restore, follow through with the restoration and your done (I've only seen it work with Windows 7) If you have a mac I think your SCREWED!!!!!

[schnitzeljaeger]

^ Talk about overkill.

Deleting the clientregistry.blob in the Steam folder should suffice. Restart Steam after that.

edit: no need to do this. Take a look at my second post.

[Felix]

User settings are stored in your Userdata folder, I believe.

Deleting that and restarting the Steam client will put your Steam Settings back to Day 1, however this will also delete your Steam Screenshots. So be careful if you have any you want to keep!

(You could always manually remove the screenshots, delete the Userdata folder and then readd the screenshots, I'd imagine).

[schnitzeljaeger]

Looked a bit around my Steam install and I think I found a clean solution. Steam stores this setting in the Windows registry.

Make a textfile and copy this into it:



Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Valve\Steam]
"StartupMode"=dword:00000000


Then save that file with the ending *.reg (eg: bigpicture.reg) and start it. A warning pops up if you're really sure and after accepting that you should be good to go.

[Chelsea_Leo]

i have that problem too.. how u reseted big picture???

[TLATER]

To anyone needing to do it in the future, schnitzeljaeger's solution works, it might be easier to use regedit (I am unsure of how to fix it on Mac and I'm too lazy to work it out for Vista and XP again...) though:

Open up your start menu and type "regedit".
Start the program "regedit.exe" just simply by pressing enter, after that just click "yes" if it asks you for permission.

So now we'll have to locate the key for big picture mode... If you haven't ever opened regedit a nice little tree will be on the left of the window. If any folders are opened just close them with the triangles next to them.

Open the folder "HKEY_CURRENT_USER".
Open the subfolder "Software".
Find the folder "Valve" and open that one too (getting tedious, I know...)
Click on "Steam" (just once)
Now on the right side find the so-called "key" "StartupMode" (There will be several, take the one that says nothing after it.) and double-click it.

If Steam starts in Big Picture mode you will see a box that says "Value" set to 1. Change that to 0.

Click "OK".

Et voilà, Steam will start normally again, even your settings are still there!

All other settings will also be located in that folder so if you ever need to reset other Steam settings you could use a similiar approach. Use regedit at your own risk though, you can break quite a lot if you don't know what you're doing.

[I am Snatchy . ~ MIX?!]

TLATER's post helped! I just reseted steam from BPM to normal! Good job and thank you!

[Why You Lonely? Boy]

Omg dude thank you very much!!! I can now log in to steam!! <3 :3

[virus*]

thanks brother ververy veryvery thank you

[Massendefekt]

My idea, reinstall steam ;)