Fix: Steam thinks its running in compatibility mode

[ZeroHour]

I tried this but it keeps on replying it has been disabled by your administrator but i have not disabled anything my OS is windows vista basic and i dont know what else to try.

Virus's/malware can block running regedit. Are you logged into your pc as administrator?
Is it part of a managed network? e.g. work network etc.

[ciric50]

Go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam and right click on Steam.exe. Select Properties, then the Compatibility tab. Make sure the compatibility checkbox is not checked.

THEN click the button at the bottom of the dialog titled "Show settings for all users". This will bring up another dialog, and on this one also make sure the compatibility checkbox is not checked. This worked for me!

[kademan21]

OMG thank you so much i was looking everywhere to solve the problem. you are my god and idle.
now for some random smilies

[kyle1337]

Hi zero hour,

You seem like you know what your talking about and I was hoping you might be able to give my problem a try.

I have l4d2 installed on windows 7 32 bit. It had been running perfectly for quite some time until a few weeks ago when it started crashing whenever I got into gameplay. I tried your fix but unfortunately no luck.

The crash happens the same way every time. I start l4d2, the opening cinematic and the menu interface work perfectly. I join a lobby and again everything is normal. The level/server loads and the opening cinematic renders perfectly. Everything continues as always except that once the game goes into gameplay (first person), the game shuts down immediately and goes directly back to windows. There is no lagging of any kind, the game simply turns off and returns to windows.

Now after reading some articles and posts on the internet, some people think it may be a hardware issue. However, I am still able to run Day of Defeat perfectly while simultaneously running a movie on my second screen. To me this would indicate that my computer hardware is not the problem. Presumably if it were a hardware issue my computer would not be able to handle other similar tasks.

I have checked my graphics cards settings and all of the settings are on default. I'm stumped and I would love if you could give me a hand.

One final note, I pre-purchased the game and on the night it was released there was issues with running it. Someone posted a quick fix by changing the name of a file. I used it and the game worked fine. Not sure if my problems are related to that but i thought I would give you all the relevant information.

Thanks for your consideration

[ZeroHour]

Hi Kyle
First things, have you updated your sound card and graphics card drivers to the latest versions?
What sound card do you have?
Do you get any kind of crash message or do you just see your desktop without error messages?
When you say you checked your card settings was that ingame settings or the actual grpahics card control panel?
I hope I can narrow down a fix for you

Cheers

[ThaProphet07]

Hey ZeroHour. I too have come from the steam forums and appreciate your solution. I had a couple questions about the matter though.

1. Do I need to uninstall steam and delete all the folders including the one in my registry, and then reinstall for this to work? Because I tried it without uninstalling steam and it still says my steam.exe is in Windows Vista compatibility mode.

2. Do you think this problem has anything to do with these random issues I posted on steam: (Link is on second reply)


and finally 3. If you don't think this compatibility mode thing is not the cause of those problems mentioned, do you have any suggestions or know anybody that might?



Thank you in advance

[ThaProphet07]

(Heres the link to my post on the steam forums)

Slow game launch (and other random issues) - Steam Users' Forums

Sorry for the length, thanks again!

[cadkroll]

When I try to install a game or just use Steam on my desktop it starts and when I enter my account name and password and click login it crashes and Windows tells me that "Steam 732897 is not responding".

Sometimes before it does this it will try to update Steam but I am getting very slow download speeds, around 3 Kb/s when I know my internet connection is better than that and I can download other things at normal and faster speeds while it updates.

What do I have to do to make Steam not crash and let me install my games?

[kyle1337]

Hi Kyle
First things, have you updated your sound card and graphics card drivers to the latest versions?
What sound card do you have?
Do you get any kind of crash message or do you just see your desktop without error messages?
When you say you checked your card settings was that ingame settings or the actual grpahics card control panel?
I hope I can narrow down a fix for you

Cheers

Hey Zero Hour,

First let me thank you for taking an interest in my problem.

I have checked, and yes, both my graphics card and sound card drivers have been updated to the latest version.

The sound card I have is a Realtek AC'97 Audio

I do not see any kind of error message whatsoever. The desktop simply appears immediately without any error messages.

I checked my card settings in the Nvidia control panel.

I am running a nvidia 8800 gts graphics card along with two hard drives. One of which was installed recently.

I hope this helps you narrow down a fix

Thanks again for all your help,
Kyle

[ZeroHour]

Hey ZeroHour. I too have come from the steam forums and appreciate your solution. I had a couple questions about the matter though.

1. Do I need to uninstall steam and delete all the folders including the one in my registry, and then reinstall for this to work? Because I tried it without uninstalling steam and it still says my steam.exe is in Windows Vista compatibility mode.

2. Do you think this problem has anything to do with these random issues I posted on steam: (Link is on second reply)


and finally 3. If you don't think this compatibility mode thing is not the cause of those problems mentioned, do you have any suggestions or know anybody that might?



Thank you in advance

Hey, to point 1:
DO NOT UNINSTALL STEAM! it means you will have to redownload everything (I made this mistake when I got the issue but thankfully I had a 100gb backup)
Make sure steam is not running and remove the reg entry if its there and then it should be turned off.

2:
No not specifically but I too have noticed things can be a little sluggish on w7 over even vista but not as bad as that.

3:
I would try changing your primary dns server in your network card settings to say googles one of 8.8.8.8 as I suspect that steam could have issues with some routers with w7. I have for example found that sometimes when I run steam it shows the "connecting to {account name}" when its launching but fails to connect but simply closing steam and restarting it fixes the issue. I switched to google dns and have not had this issue since.

Give that a try and post your results. It may not fix anything but its worth a go. Also what ISP do you have?

[ZeroHour]

Hey Zero Hour,

First let me thank you for taking an interest in my problem.

I have checked, and yes, both my graphics card and sound card drivers have been updated to the latest version.

The sound card I have is a Realtek AC'97 Audio

I do not see any kind of error message whatsoever. The desktop simply appears immediately without any error messages.

I checked my card settings in the Nvidia control panel.

I am running a nvidia 8800 gts graphics card along with two hard drives. One of which was installed recently.

I hope this helps you narrow down a fix

Thanks again for all your help,
Kyle

Hi
Can you check your event log for errors in it?
Start->Control Panel->(icon view rather then category)->administrative tools->event viewer
You have a realtek ac97, its a chip with LOTS of issues. Did you use the drivers from your motherboard manufacturer (or dell for example) first as they can customise the chip a little (to save cash) and it still named the same thing. I would try disabling your sound card using device manager (also in control panel) and launching the game to see if that does anything.

Cheers

[ZeroHour]

When I try to install a game or just use Steam on my desktop it starts and when I enter my account name and password and click login it crashes and Windows tells me that "Steam 732897 is not responding".

Sometimes before it does this it will try to update Steam but I am getting very slow download speeds, around 3 Kb/s when I know my internet connection is better than that and I can download other things at normal and faster speeds while it updates.

What do I have to do to make Steam not crash and let me install my games?

Hi
Can you double check in steams settings you have the correct country listed? I know they were having some download speed issues at christmas. Also I would try changing your dns to googles of 8.8.8.8 firstly and see if that helps a little.
I would also wait for steam to do its thing. Windows can show its not responding but its still could be doing things in the background. If after 5 minutes nothing has happened I would then end steam but I have had *freezes* like this when installing/starting steam.

[ThaProphet07]

Hey Zero, thank you for your suggestions. I focused on my internet connection and modem/router settings after reading the post (as opposed to looking at my anti-virus programs) and I had my router and modem configurations setup wrong since August. It didn't cross my mind that I had chose the wrong settings, but I must have been tired or something when I did it 5 months ago.

I set my modem back to bridged mode, set the router back to PPPoE and enabled gaming mode. It was either the 2 firewalls were turned on at the same time and slowed the connection, or it was because both my modem and my router were trying to find independent connections. Either way, I also have a bit faster download/upload speed DDDD.

Anyways, thank you very much. I hear other people have very similar issues as I on the steam forums so I will post my problem and solution there.

[ZeroHour]

Hey Zero, thank you for your suggestions. I focused on my internet connection and modem/router settings after reading the post (as opposed to looking at my anti-virus programs) and I had my router and modem configurations setup wrong since August. It didn't cross my mind that I had chose the wrong settings, but I must have been tired or something when I did it 5 months ago.

I set my modem back to bridged mode, set the router back to PPPoE and enabled gaming mode. It was either the 2 firewalls were turned on at the same time and slowed the connection, or it was because both my modem and my router were trying to find independent connections. Either way, I also have a bit faster download/upload speed DDDD.

Anyways, thank you very much. I hear other people have very similar issues as I on the steam forums so I will post my problem and solution there.

Hi
glad to hear your problems are sorted and glad to be of help
Just link them to this page/thread and I will see if I can assist.

[kyle1337]

Hi
Can you check your event log for errors in it?
Start->Control Panel->(icon view rather then category)->administrative tools->event viewer
You have a realtek ac97, its a chip with LOTS of issues. Did you use the drivers from your motherboard manufacturer (or dell for example) first as they can customise the chip a little (to save cash) and it still named the same thing. I would try disabling your sound card using device manager (also in control panel) and launching the game to see if that does anything.

Cheers

I checked the event viewer and the only error that seemed pertinent and was logged on a recurring basis (i tried to get the game working a number of times) was the following:

"The NVIDIA Display Driver Service service has reported an invalid current state 32"

I am just about to try turning off my sound card but after seeing these recurring errors i wanted to post this immediately.

Thanks,
Kyle