Why does Steam zorch my notification area info balloons?

[JeffDC]

I'm on a dialup internet connection and never play HL2 online, so I added Steam to my Windows startup group. So every time I boot, Steam starts in offline mode and I can play HL2 later in my computing session without Steam establishing a connection to the internet -- even if a connection is active at the time.

Only problem is, once Steam is loaded, none of the info balloons in my notification area (AKA "system tray") work any more. Day/date info from the system clock doesn't appear, network status doesn't appear, hardware monitoring utils don't display their info, etc.

Is this behavior by design, or is a patch or registry edit available to fix it?

BTW I'm on Windows 2000 SP4. Thanks.

 

[Forceflow]

What happens if you don't auto-run steam at startup ?

 

[JeffDC]

I've definitely determined the problem is coming from Steam. Notification area balloons return to normal if I don't load Steam at startup, and even when I unload it at any point after startup.

 

[JeffDC]

Never mind, I figured it out. You have to add the "-silent" parameter on Steam's shortcut command line (like it does in the registry when you select its auto-start option), and balloons are now working as they should. Although for some reason Steam takes 4-5x as long to load compared to not using the -silent switch. Oh well.

 

[Forceflow]

It's steam, don't expect any logic. Probably the -silent switch starts the steam executable at its lowest priority thread (other applications and windows services have higher priority).