Fix: Steam thinks its running in compatibility mode

Hello, i have had this problem aswell after installing Steam on window 7 64bit. Once i open up steam this pop up "Running Steam in Windows compatibility mode is not recommended. Please remove any Windows compatibility settings for all users under file properties for Steam.exe and restart Steam. Press 'Cancel' to premanently ignore this warning and continue." I tried the both you have posted by going into both the registery but i couldnt find steam.exe. I then hit cancal to permantly ignore this warnining and it opened up steam without any problem. Im just wondering if this would damage the system in any way? Thanks!

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Originally Posted by mik02911

yeah, i've done everything even what you suggested nothing works i've done everything thing the steam forums suggested i don't know what to do i have windows 7 professional and at time it'll let me reinstall steam but sometimes when it is uploading the platform it'll try 3-5 times before an error comes up saying "steam is temporary unavailable, please try again later" can someone help me i've been told its a corrupt file in the installation but i have no clue how to get it out... can someone please help me

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see if there is a program named hl.exe running, if it is try shut it down.

Yet another person who has joined to say thanks. Also might be an IT professional in a couple of years so may as well get registered now.

Just thought I would CRUSH the idea that it was something to do with NVIDEA drivers as I have an ATI card. I also saw L4D2 mentioned although for a different problem...it did the compatibility thing after I was playing that and closed steam earlier so maybe a link there.

This steam being unavailable message only occurs for me when I put the wrong password in or no internets exist.

Thanks again. Was going to happily say cancel and go on my merry way but I felt like I was being ignorant not dealing with it.

SOLUTION IF the first step didn't work and btw this worked for me.

Hit start->run->regedit
Go to key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers
Look for a entry with your path to steam.exe
Delete that entry
If you dont find it there try HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers

Okay now for 2nd step; Mainly your just deleting another folder in regedit; and for the proffesionals out there feel free to test as this worked for me.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> Software
You should now see a folder named "Valve". Delete it, the hole folder (left click folder "Valve" right click and delete, confirm deletion)

Okay now close the Regedi; go to steam and click properties and click compatability mode click "Change settings for all users" un-check compatability mode and Run as administrator. Apply and close it. Stream shall now work for you. I do hope the administrators of this website put this up cause it worked for me, as as a vista user i can proudly say nothing is ever easy >,<

Thanks, this was very helpful to me, as I see it was to a lot of other people!

Hey man, thanks for the help (saw your reply in the Steam Forums). Just registered here because here I know I'll get a lot more help from the real tech-pros! Thanks a bunch!

Just wanted to thank you ZeroHour for the fix!! I already feared I'd have to reinstall steam or do a system restore oO But now everything works again, thanks so much! :)

Np too all those that it helped. Feel free to post any other computer related woes in these forums too as I am sure someone can help.

Hi this thread was a life saver. But now steam won´t save my password and auto login.

Not the biggest problem in the world but it´s a bit anoying. if you could help it would be

i would be very greateful.

Rocktrollswe: I'm guessing you followed the suggestion earlier to remove the "Valve folder" in your registry?

IF so, then I'd guess that's the reason for steam no longer saving your password.
As far as I know steam "should" recreate that part of the registry by itself.
You might be able to manually recreate it, though mine contains a LOT of keys/information so reinstalling steam might be the easiest way to go.

And last but not least, thank you ZeroHour, saved me a whole lot of time with your solution, worked perfectly.

well i used zerohours way but i´ll try your way and see if it works

ill post my results soon

There is another possible catch if you're running 64-bit Windows. Under HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Valve\Steam, the value TempAppCmdLine can appear with the -foreground option appended to the normal steam command line. Remove the -foreground part.

I just register to say Thank you so much for helping me thank you. my eng is poor if my eng is better i would express my feeling thank you for you better but sadly i cant express it. all i cant say is Thank you veryvery very very very very very very very very much.

well i tried to removethe valve map. no effect. got tired did backup. reintall. plus i try to buy retail copys for quick installation and update

hey guys, I don't know if anyone else has experienced this, but help would be greatly appreciated. So I too was getting the compatibility error notice, so I follow the instructions, go into regedit, blah blah blah, delete the pathway. after I do this, my computer freezes completely. i reboot, and after about 30 seconds to a minute, it freezes again. I boot up in safemode w/ networking. I come back on here, and go into local machine and delete the "foreground" part. Steam opens fine in safe mode w/ networking, however, when I boot up normally, my computer keeps freezing. Has anyone else experienced this and are there any solutions?

some specs
windows 7 64 bit
asus g73 notebook
intel core i7