Uninstalling Steam

Categories: Topics | Steam | Troubleshooting

Article ID: 9609-OBMP-2526

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Steam Support will not request your Steam account password for any reason, nor will you ever be asked to enter your Steam account password into a website form.

Important Note

The following process will completely remove Steam and any associated game content from your machine. If you wish to reinstall Steam and Steam games in the future, please see the Using the Steam Backup Feature topic for instructions to create backups of game content before uninstalling Steam.

Please observe the following procedure to uninstall Steam and any game content from your machine:

Exit Steam
Click the Windows Start button and select Control Panel
Open the Add or Remove Programs dialog
Select Steam from the list and click the Change/Remove button
Select the Automatic option and click Next
Click Finish to uninstall Steam

If the normal process to uninstall Steam does not work, you may have inadvertently damaged your Steam installation. To uninstall Steam, you may first be required to re-install Steam to repair the installation before it may be removed.

The latest Steam installer can be found on the Get Steam Now page.

If all of the above options fail to assist you in uninstalling Steam, you can still remove your Steam files and registry entries manually.

Manually Removing Steam

Important Note

Dealing with your registry requires extreme care. Do not delete anything in your Windows registry that you are unsure about. For this reason, we suggest you only use this option as a last resort.

Exit Steam
Navigate to your Steam installation directory (by default, C:\Program Files\Steam or C:\Program Files\Valve\Steam)
- If you wish to keep your saved games and downloaded multiplayer content for a future installation of Steam, move your \steamapps\ folder to your desktop
Delete the contents of the Steam installation directory
Go to Start, select Run, and enter regedit
In the left-hand column of your registry editor, navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Valve\
Right-click on the Steam subdirectory and select Delete
In the left-hand column of your registry editor, navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Valve\Steam
Right-click on the Steam subdirectory and select Delete

Retrieved from "http://supportwiki.steampowered.com/wiki/Uninstalling_Steam"

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