REINSTALL STEAM??

rgz333 · 10-02-2011, 03:59 PM

I got a message in my start menu saying Windows found a new version of Steam, that Valve recommends you install. I clicked the link, went to steampowered.com and hit install.... Now all my games are completely uninstalled, my free to play games are no longer on in my Library even and I have to re-install all of my games now

and for what? I didn't notice any changes, still the same old Steam, I've never gotten a Windows pop up for a Steam update before. I thought Steam normally updated on it's own, not deleting all your games?? Can someone explain what happened possibly? If this is the way Steam updates, count me out...

SmellyLethality · 10-02-2011, 04:00 PM

I've never seen a windows popup for steam. They always happen when launching the client.

rgz333 · 10-02-2011, 04:02 PM

that's what i thought as well, in fact i even updated that same way the other night, and now today this happens. I don't get it. Steam support is lousy so I doubt I'll ever figure it out

Teh_Guy · 10-02-2011, 04:23 PM

Uhmm, Steam usually just needs a restart when updating..

A whole 'nother installation is just.. idk.. not right..

theycallmeryan · 10-02-2011, 06:38 PM

From now on, just use the 'Check for Steam Client update' feature. Did you think that a client that was originally designed to automatically update games wouldn't automatically update itself?

rgz333 · 10-02-2011, 07:05 PM

I have updated Steam plenty of times, it always restarts steam blah blah blah. But today I got a message in my bottom right corner on the task bar, using Win7, and it said Valve recommends you install a more previous version of Steam. So I clicked, went to steampowered.com and hit install. It took all my games off the hard drive an now I have to re-install all of them... I've never had this happen before an don't know why it happened. But it was lame.

Also, I don't understand why my CPU or Win7 thought I had an older version of Steam to begin with.

Technogeek1994 · 10-02-2011, 07:06 PM

Are you certain it was a genuine Steam update, not a piece of malware that deleted all your games for fun and then pretends to be Steam to steal your account details?

rgz333 · 10-02-2011, 08:36 PM

it was in the bottom right corner of my start menu/task bar. Where windows displays messages such as important messages for your cpu. It was windows7 telling me Valve recommends i update steam to the newest version, click here. The link brought me to steampowered.com, that's valve's website. I don't think it's fake. Idk but I'm reinstalling all of my games and my connection is running absolutely horrible for some reason right now.

an I re-installed Arma British Armed Forces, now it doesn't have a common folder in my steamapps file... It deleted my commons folder as well before I even re-installed Arma.

Neon Kitten · 10-02-2011, 10:52 PM

Yes, I have this too. I had a lockup while playing WoW and had to reboot, and on rebooting, Windows 7's "Action Center" had put its alert flag in the system tray and clicking on it reveals:

1 Message

Address a problem with Steam

Clicking on the latter opens Action Center, and there is a delay while it says "Opening Solution". Eventually this appears:

Address a problem with Steam

Steam has stopped working properly.

A newer version of Steam is available for download that might solve this problem. Valve Corporation recommends updating to the latest version of Steam to take advantage of security and stability improvements.

Click to go to the Valve Corporation website to download the latest version of Steam

Clicking "What does this apply to" reveals that on my system Steam "stopped working" last Wednesday 21st.

Looking in event viewer there are a couple of errors logged for that date and time. One is:

The Steam Client Service service failed to start due to the following error:
The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.

And the other:

A timeout was reached (30000 milliseconds) while waiting for the Steam Client Service service to connect.

Whatever the reason for this, it's been deemed serious enough by Windows 7 to add an entry to Action Center, something it pretty much never does when an app fails.

The Action Center link, btw, goes to http://store.steampowered.com/about/

rasitha_raw · 10-03-2011, 12:59 AM

Is the whole steam folder gone?

cylon · 10-03-2011, 05:33 AM

It's Windows' lovely crash reporter and fixing tool! Your Steam obviously crashed, Windows has picked it up and said "oh it crashed... you must need a newer version" - What windows has done is UNINSTALL Steam and installed an older version from the steampowered web page. The fact it's an older version doesn't matter, Steam will update itself on the fly when it is launched anyway.

All updates to Steam are done INSIDE steam and you get a 'steam style popup window' that says "an update is ready to be installed" and you click 'now' or 'later'.

The problem here is that firstly windows UNINSTALLED Steam. If you uninstall Steam, you delete *everything* from your steamapps folder which means you have no games installed! If you can right click on your steam folder in windows and have access to the "previous versions" feature you may be able to copy your files back in again. Otherwise..... it's downloading time i'm afraid!

Windows Action Centre and Crash tools aren't the best. Most of them simply result in A> Reinstall item B> Update item.

rgz333 · 10-03-2011, 10:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neon Kitten

Yes, I have this too. I had a lockup while playing WoW and had to reboot, and on rebooting, Windows 7's "Action Center" had put its alert flag in the system tray and clicking on it reveals:

1 Message

Address a problem with Steam

Clicking on the latter opens Action Center, and there is a delay while it says "Opening Solution". Eventually this appears:

Address a problem with Steam

Steam has stopped working properly.

A newer version of Steam is available for download that might solve this problem. Valve Corporation recommends updating to the latest version of Steam to take advantage of security and stability improvements.

Click to go to the Valve Corporation website to download the latest version of Steam

Clicking "What does this apply to" reveals that on my system Steam "stopped working" last Wednesday 21st.

Looking in event viewer there are a couple of errors logged for that date and time. One is:

The Steam Client Service service failed to start due to the following error:
The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.

And the other:

A timeout was reached (30000 milliseconds) while waiting for the Steam Client Service service to connect.

Whatever the reason for this, it's been deemed serious enough by Windows 7 to add an entry to Action Center, something it pretty much never does when an app fails.

The Action Center link, btw, goes to http://store.steampowered.com/about/

This is EXACTLY what happened. It was, and still is causing a lot of anguish. I am STILL re-installing my games. Also, I just re-installed all of my Arma games and when I try to Verify Integrity of the Cache Files, it continues giving me this message, "one file failed to be verified and will be re-acquired", what does this mean? I have never gotten this error before, will this affect my game in any way? Any help would be awesome thx!

Nekomancer · 10-03-2011, 10:30 AM

One file not verifying sounds like the game uses the CEG copy protection. And in that case, everything is fine. The file is supposed to fail due to how it works.

rgz333 · 10-03-2011, 10:39 AM

hmmm, ok lol. The game still runs, just wondering what that might be. Thanks!

rasitha_raw · 10-03-2011, 12:30 PM

you couldve tried file recovery. Mightve given you some lesser download times.

10-02-2011, 03:59 PM	#1
rgz333 Join Date: Jul 2011 Reputation: 0 Posts: 103	REINSTALL STEAM?? I got a message in my start menu saying Windows found a new version of Steam, that Valve recommends you install. I clicked the link, went to steampowered.com and hit install.... Now all my games are completely uninstalled, my free to play games are no longer on in my Library even and I have to re-install all of my games now and for what? I didn't notice any changes, still the same old Steam, I've never gotten a Windows pop up for a Steam update before. I thought Steam normally updated on it's own, not deleting all your games?? Can someone explain what happened possibly? If this is the way Steam updates, count me out...

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10-02-2011, 04:00 PM	#2
SmellyLethality Join Date: Aug 2010 Reputation: 2926 Posts: 2,057	I've never seen a windows popup for steam. They always happen when launching the client.

10-02-2011, 04:02 PM	#3
rgz333 Join Date: Jul 2011 Reputation: 0 Posts: 103	that's what i thought as well, in fact i even updated that same way the other night, and now today this happens. I don't get it. Steam support is lousy so I doubt I'll ever figure it out

10-02-2011, 04:23 PM	#4
Teh_Guy Join Date: May 2009 Reputation: 93 Posts: 1,828	Uhmm, Steam usually just needs a restart when updating.. A whole 'nother installation is just.. idk.. not right..

10-02-2011, 06:38 PM	#5
theycallmeryan Join Date: Apr 2011 Reputation: 0 Posts: 241	From now on, just use the 'Check for Steam Client update' feature. Did you think that a client that was originally designed to automatically update games wouldn't automatically update itself?

10-02-2011, 07:05 PM	#6
rgz333 Join Date: Jul 2011 Reputation: 0 Posts: 103	I have updated Steam plenty of times, it always restarts steam blah blah blah. But today I got a message in my bottom right corner on the task bar, using Win7, and it said Valve recommends you install a more previous version of Steam. So I clicked, went to steampowered.com and hit install. It took all my games off the hard drive an now I have to re-install all of them... I've never had this happen before an don't know why it happened. But it was lame. Also, I don't understand why my CPU or Win7 thought I had an older version of Steam to begin with.

10-02-2011, 07:06 PM	#7
Technogeek1994 Join Date: Aug 2011 Reputation: 588 Posts: 1,071	Are you certain it was a genuine Steam update, not a piece of malware that deleted all your games for fun and then pretends to be Steam to steal your account details?

10-02-2011, 08:36 PM	#8
rgz333 Join Date: Jul 2011 Reputation: 0 Posts: 103	it was in the bottom right corner of my start menu/task bar. Where windows displays messages such as important messages for your cpu. It was windows7 telling me Valve recommends i update steam to the newest version, click here. The link brought me to steampowered.com, that's valve's website. I don't think it's fake. Idk but I'm reinstalling all of my games and my connection is running absolutely horrible for some reason right now. an I re-installed Arma British Armed Forces, now it doesn't have a common folder in my steamapps file... It deleted my commons folder as well before I even re-installed Arma.

10-02-2011, 10:52 PM	#9
Neon Kitten Join Date: Jul 2010 Reputation: 17 Posts: 365	Yes, I have this too. I had a lockup while playing WoW and had to reboot, and on rebooting, Windows 7's "Action Center" had put its alert flag in the system tray and clicking on it reveals: 1 Message Address a problem with Steam Clicking on the latter opens Action Center, and there is a delay while it says "Opening Solution". Eventually this appears: Address a problem with Steam Steam has stopped working properly. A newer version of Steam is available for download that might solve this problem. Valve Corporation recommends updating to the latest version of Steam to take advantage of security and stability improvements. Click to go to the Valve Corporation website to download the latest version of Steam Clicking "What does this apply to" reveals that on my system Steam "stopped working" last Wednesday 21st. Looking in event viewer there are a couple of errors logged for that date and time. One is: The Steam Client Service service failed to start due to the following error: The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion. And the other: A timeout was reached (30000 milliseconds) while waiting for the Steam Client Service service to connect. Whatever the reason for this, it's been deemed serious enough by Windows 7 to add an entry to Action Center, something it pretty much never does when an app fails. The Action Center link, btw, goes to http://store.steampowered.com/about/

10-03-2011, 12:59 AM	#10
rasitha_raw Join Date: Mar 2011 Reputation: 270 Posts: 557	Is the whole steam folder gone?

10-03-2011, 05:33 AM	#11
cylon Join Date: Nov 2009 Reputation: 740 Posts: 3,268	It's Windows' lovely crash reporter and fixing tool! Your Steam obviously crashed, Windows has picked it up and said "oh it crashed... you must need a newer version" - What windows has done is UNINSTALL Steam and installed an older version from the steampowered web page. The fact it's an older version doesn't matter, Steam will update itself on the fly when it is launched anyway. All updates to Steam are done INSIDE steam and you get a 'steam style popup window' that says "an update is ready to be installed" and you click 'now' or 'later'. The problem here is that firstly windows UNINSTALLED Steam. If you uninstall Steam, you delete everything from your steamapps folder which means you have no games installed! If you can right click on your steam folder in windows and have access to the "previous versions" feature you may be able to copy your files back in again. Otherwise..... it's downloading time i'm afraid! Windows Action Centre and Crash tools aren't the best. Most of them simply result in A> Reinstall item B> Update item.

10-03-2011, 10:30 AM	#13
Nekomancer Join Date: Mar 2008 Reputation: 2386 Posts: 15,158	One file not verifying sounds like the game uses the CEG copy protection. And in that case, everything is fine. The file is supposed to fail due to how it works.

10-03-2011, 10:39 AM	#14
rgz333 Join Date: Jul 2011 Reputation: 0 Posts: 103	hmmm, ok lol. The game still runs, just wondering what that might be. Thanks!

10-03-2011, 12:30 PM	#15
rasitha_raw Join Date: Mar 2011 Reputation: 270 Posts: 557	you couldve tried file recovery. Mightve given you some lesser download times.