ERROR: delete of Steam.exe failed

[Asrai]

I'm getting this message: "Steam.exe(main exception): ERROR: delete of Steam.exe failed, Win32 error 5 "access is denied""

I might not have installed it properly? I don't know. Help if you can please.

Edit: It happens upon game startup, in the middle of the 'Updating Steam' green loading pop-up.

 

[Asrai]

Oh, and it didn't ask me for my CD key..

I must have done something badly wrong so please if you read this help me.

 

[razormagoo]

same here!!pls help

 

[Asrai]

Thansk for getting my hopes up when I saw there was a reply. :|

 

[razormagoo]

bump.
can someone pls help?

 

[Asrai]

Look, don't bump MY THREAD, it doesn't work that way.

 

[All_Steamed_Out]

Hi:


I spent weeks trying to solve this problem. I assume you also get this error message:

'Steam.exe (Main Exception): ERROR: delete of steam.exe failed,Win32
Error 5 'Access is denied'

Steam’s tech support is useless, basically because they choose to blame an infection on your machine instead of their poorly written program. And that is borne out by their lack a suggestion for a real solution on that linked page you list.

After relentlessly digging through the forums, I found this post by someone with a great more experience and skill than I. It worked for me, give it a try. I have pasted his procedure below. Good Luck!

What I Did...
Maybe this isn't an "approved" method, but it allowed me to get into the game after about 2 hours of troubleshooting:

1. Remove any old versions of Steam.
2. Download the Steam client.
3. Download PrcView - a freeware utility that displays running processes. http://www.xmlsp.com/pview/prcview.htm
4. Run PrcView.exe. You'll see a list of running processes. Keep this somewhere visible, so you can monitor it and click on it.
5. Run the Steam.exe
6. You'll see Steam.exe listed in Process Viewer as a running process.
7. Watch it closely.
8. Soon, you'll see SteamTmp.exe launch. When you see this launch, immediately Kill the Steam.exe manually.
9. The SteamTmp.exe will close, and then continue running again as Steam.exe (a new Steam.exe not the one you killed in Step 8 above).
10. Continue updating as normal, and close Process Viewer.
11. Everything should be good to go!

While the above is necessarily perfect, it will circumvent any other SP2, Winblind, A/V, or other apps that could be causing problems with closing of processes in a timely manner.

When I monitored the processes using PrcView.exe, I did notice that eventually, the original Steam.exe would close. Unfortunately, SteamTmp.exe would "time-out" waiting for this to happen.

IMHO, if they simply increased the "time-out" as it waits for the old Steam.exe to close, a majority of users issues would be resolved.... Or, they could simply issue a forced "Kill" of the process themselves...

Not clean, but it works!

 

[Asrai]

Thanks, but I worked it out last night. (sorry for making you write all those words)

I solved it a different way. Steam had put itself in my startup menu, and removing it from there solved my problem (?).

I don't know. It seems this problem has many ways of tackling it, or maybe it is an error message that covers a number of errors.

Thanks anyway.

 

[All_Steamed_Out]

I'm glad you found a solution.

After getting Steam installed - then the challenge was to get Half-Life2 itself installed. After many failed attempts and numerous error messages, I finally found a similar situation on a post where a guy had to go out an buy an external disc drive. So I switched from my DVD reader to my CD-RW drive - and it installed.

Now I have the only nightmare I really cared about - beating the game...