Lately, a lot of users have faced the windows cannot find steam.exe problem. In this topic, you will figure out the most possible reason for such an issue and find the methods of how to solve it.
The Reasons for the Error
Recently, many players have a problem when they can’t open Steam. It’s very annoying, as on the client could be a lot of games and in such case, it’s impossible to play them. Users resent it a lot, so they start to actively find any possible reasons for this error. For today, there are several the most common reasons:
- Virus attack. Many users don’t even realize that they have malware that interrupts the program to work successfully. Nevertheless, it’s a pretty possible reason for the inaccessibility of your Steam client as there may be malware that oriented on Steam interrupting only.
- Avast blocks the client. This antivirus software has some kind of a bug that considers the application as a suspicious program. Sometimes even adding exceptions can’t fix the problem. Other antiviruses can react to the program the same way. However, such issues are rarer.
- Problems in the registry. The work of Steam is based on running the client and running games. The combination of these two processes may cause problems in the registry.
- Incorrect installation of the Steam. If a user installs the outdated version of Steam or they didn’t follow the instructions, it may cause an impossibility to open it.
- Data damage. Some of the files may be corrupted that negatively influences the proper work of the client.
- Steam has administrative privileges that lead to its incorrect work. The client may require these privileges to fix some issues, but it can be the reason for the error as well.
So, these are the main reasons for such an error. If Steam is installed correctly, the chance of any problems except mentioned above is low.
The Ways to Solve the Problem
Knowing the possible reasons that lead to this issue, it will be much easier to fix it. We checked a large coverage of the most effective methods provided on the Web and made a list of them. Follow the next steps to open your Steam client successfully:
- Make a virus scanning using some good antivirus software. If the reason for Stem inaccessibility was malware, you will get rid of this trouble after the finish of scanning. Also, it’s always good to check your computer on viruses from time to time.
- Put the client to the expectations in Avast. Find the list in Settings and add the Steam folder to it. Then, try to open it. Usually, that’s enough to fix this error.
- If the problem is still unfixed, try to remove Avast. It also can be an alternative to the previous step if you don’t necessarily need such antivirus. There is a lot of other similar or even better software that have no problems with Steam.
- The last possible solution to this issue is to remove a registry value. You can delete remnants of Avast or remove Steam from Image File Execution Options.
- If none of the methods is useful for you, or you don’t understand how to follow them properly, you can try to download some software that restores some damaged data. It could be the reason for the issue as well.