Major steam startup problems

[Espion]

Ok, since the steam forums were shut down, and I had just posted updates about my problem, I need to turn elsewhere to get steam working for the big day!(tomorrow). They weren't that helpful anyway, seemed like every thread I posted in died...

So anyway, I'll copy my posts from the steam forums into here, any help is greatly appreciated, thanks!

(1)
I've been having trouble with Steam for the past couple week. First it would just hang at the login screen after I pressed "login," and now since the last update it just doesn't startup at all, only idles in the background.

So I started picking around in the Steam dir, and asking some questions over IRC. I noticed that my SteamApps folder was empty. Every thought that was very strange, since I had reinstalled multiple time, and even redownloaded before, but nothing was ever put into SteamApps.

I have logged into steam before, a couple weeks ago. I preordered and downloaded CS:S, but the next day is wasn't worked, and hasn't really been working since. I didn't change any settings on anything in the process.

Is this just some incredibly weird thing my computer is doing, or could the installer have gotten corrupt somehow?

Anyone have any suggestions? help?

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- I don't think it was the installer.
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(2)
I do scan for spyware every couple days. i haven't done a full system scan in a little while though. I'll try that now.

It seems to me though the problem came from the last major update, with the Phase-7 preload. Immediately after it was finished updating is when it started idling in the background. i haven't seen any part of the UI, besides the update screen, since Phase-6. No settings on my PC were changed during, before, or after the update. Any one have an idea what might of happened there?

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(3)
My firewall is configured correctly, it's allowing Steam to use any port it wants.

About the ISP, we'll see soon. I never liked this ISP and we should be switching soon(to cable too ). If that doesn't solve it....I'm not sure what to think.

Although, what I said before still stands. I logged on before to preordered, and after different updates it's been getting worse(first it would freeze when i tried to login, then after phase 7 it wouldn't even startup). And nothing that I can see from my end has changed between now and the first time I installed Steam.

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(4)-Final
Since I'd actually like to play HL2 tomorrow, or CS:S, since I've already purchased both of them, I'd like to have this figured out today. I tried going to the #Steam support channel and msg'ing SteamBot, but I sat there for over an hour without anyone contacting me, said there was no other support claims at the time either.

I'm going to list off everything I've tried so far:

-Deleting clientregistry.blob
-Deleting Steam.dll
-Deleting SteamUI.dll
(then restarting after all of the above)
-Getting someone to send me their platform.gcf(since I never get one installed), steam.dll, steamui.dll. Hell, someone sent me most of their steam folder(only essantial files in it).
-Reinstalling
-Reinstalling with installers from different locations
-Disabling nortan AV and nortan internet security
-Uninstalling Nortan AV/internet security
-Editing my startup so only the internet, essential programs, and steam startup
-Uninstalling SP2, then reinstalling after that didn't work.
-Full system scan, all files are clean.
-Spyware search with adaware and S&D. All spyware on my PC is long gone.
-Script blocking is disabled always.
-Nortan is allowing steam to use all ports.
-Steam is configured properly with nortan, I've probably done it manually about 10 times now.

There's probably more too, I just can't think of it right now. I'm running out of ideas, this thing just won't run(wouldn't login when it DID run either, so hopefully a fix for this problem would fix that too) again(yes, it has before, and I've never changed any settings, or if I have they were immediately put back after steam didn't work) no matter what I try. Suggestion, fixes, please.

If I can't get this working, that means no HL2 for me.