Steam install failed: 'Steam.exe (Main Exception): ERROR: delete of steam.exe failed,

[All_Steamed_Out]

I am getting just a little frustrated:

- More with the lack of assistance from Valve than than the actual problem itself. And yes, I have read and followed the procedures Valve lists on their support page for this error in the Steam installation failure.

Unfortunately, they don't follow up in the article about what choices are left when there recommendations fail.

I have done everything I can think of - and far more than they suggest. I doubt I will ever hear from Valve on any suggestions as to a solution. They're just swimming in too much money right now.

I have pasted the details of my submission to Valve on where I am and what I have tried to do below. I am begging for help from anyone with the experience and technical skill to suggest a solution:

"To Steam technical support:



I have now made another unsuccessful attempt to install Steam on my machine.



To help, I am listing the basic configuration of my hardware:



AMD 1800+

MSI 6712 motherboard VIA KT400A chipset

ATI 9800 PRO AGP 128mb Catalyst 4.11 drivers

Audigy LS - Current drivers

1024MB PC2700 333 RAM

Windows XP - Service Pack2

80GB hard drive (approx 37% free space)



Norton Corporate Edition Antivirus - updated daily - full system scan weekly

Lavasoft Adaware - updated with smart scan daily - full system scan weekly

Spybot - Search Destroy 1.3 - run approx. every 2-3 days

Sygate Personal Firewall (Steam allowed)



Norton, Lavasoft and Spybot all show no viruses, Trojans or
spyware/malware infections.



To reduce to an absolute minimum any software conflicts I clean booted
the computer prior to attempting the install. No firewall, Norton, or
any applications running nothing but the minimum necessary to run Windows.

Task Manager displayed the following running processes:

Alg.exe

Crss.exe

Explorer.exe

Lsass.exe

Mspmspsv.exe

Services.exe

Smss.exe

Spoolsv.exe Local Service

Spoolsv.exe

Spoolsv.exe

Spoolsv.exe

Spoolsv.exe

SYSTEM

SYSTEM IDLE PROCESS SYSTEM

Taskmgr.exe

Winlogon.exe



No others were present



I just attempted an install of Steam, which returned the same failure at
the 27% point of the installation. The same error message was displayed
before closing:

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



I made a second attempt after using the add/remove programs utility to
uninstall the half installed program. I then used regcleaner to remove
the Valve- Steam entry in the registry, and made the second attempt.



The failed result was duplicated.



I should mention that I have no other problems installing any other
software other than yours - and never have had.



Something is obviously missing from your technical support page in
answer to this problem.



I would very much like to support the great work you have done in
creating this game. But not if you won't let me use it.



Please assist in a solution.



Don Fitzsimmons"

Does anyone out there know what to do?

 

[HGOwen]

Try uninstalling Steam.

That should work.

Also, are you running as an Administrator?

 

[All_Steamed_Out]

Fresh install

Hi:

Thanks for responding.

When I begin this process, there is no version of Steam on my machine.

Valve's explanation of the process, is that the steam installer first loads an earlier version of Steam, then begins to overwrite/uninstall it to update it. They say it is during this "hand-off" that the fault occurs. Very "gnarly" in my opinion.

And it is my home system, so I am an administrator.