# How to Fix Steam



## MC-117 (May 27, 2009)

Do you experience constant failure of the Steam.exe program? Need to reboot your computer just to play Team Fortress 2 or CounterStrike. I myself have experienced these kind of problems before. To start of, please uninstall 3rd party programs such as:
*Ghostsurf 2007
Spycatcher Express ( Comes bundled with GhostSurf )
AOLacsd.exe (AOL connection driver)*
Such programs are known to interfere with Steam thus causing it not to run properly.
If you have none of these programs, follow these steps.
*1) CRTL - ALT - DELETE to open up Task Manager
2) If you do not see the Steam program in the first tab, you're in the right track
3)Open up Processes
4)Look for steam.exe and stop the process
5)Try to run Steam again 
*It should work for most people, the logic is that Steam is running in the background and you are trying to reboot it again
The most is that you have to uninstall steam and try again.


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## Jason08 (Oct 13, 2008)

Thanks for posting.


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## Tanis (May 30, 2006)

Or just go for the ....
*
Start > All Programs > Steam > Uninstall Steam*

option


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## Courtneyc (Dec 7, 2003)

Or, just delete everything except the steam.exe file and the SteamApps folder (or its contents). Rerun steam.exe.

Courtney


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## MC-117 (May 27, 2009)

The objective here is to try to make steam work without uninstalling it. You have to end the process several times in order for it to work. If anyone as a permanent solution, it will be greatly appreciated. For now, i guess everyone has to follow my method then...


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## Courtneyc (Dec 7, 2003)

All of the games you downloaded from Steam are in the SteamApps folder. The only things you need to reinstall the Steam program without reinstalling the games (such as moving the program to another folder or another computer) are the SteamApps folder and the steam.exe program itself. 

If you did what I mentioned, when you run Steam.exe, it will simply download the steam program items, not the games. (The games will still be in the SteamApps folder.) On a high-speed connection, resetting the Steam program in this way takes less than 10 minutes from start to finish.

Again, you are not reinstalling your games, just the Steam application.

Courtney


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