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With my reinstallation of Windows 7 and Steam I started to encounter a silly problem.  When I would try to run Steam it was trying to say that:

Running Steam in Windows compatibility mode is not recommended. Please remove any Windows compatibility settings for all users under file properties for Steam.exe and restart Steam. Press ‘Cancel’ to premanently ignore this warning and continue.

I checked my properties and found out that I wasn’t running in compatibility mode and yet Windows believed I was.  I did some searching on the internet and one of the first few hits I got had the answer to this little dilemma.  The site was slow to come up for me but it had what I was looking for.  Apparently, there is a registry entry involved which causes this to happen.  I’ll quote that site in the event they disappear or just don’t load up in a timely fashion.

To fix the issue:

1. Hit start->run->regedit
2. Go to key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers
3. Look for a entry with your path to steam.exe
4. Delete that entry
5. If you dont find it there try HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers

Hope this helps out any that encounter this particular  issue.  As always, if you poke around in your registry and don’t know what you’re doing, I take no responsibility for your breaking of things.

Last night I installed the Windows 7 RC.  Not exactly what I meant to do since I was trying to get my XP machine formated and reinstalled.  During the install process it asked for me to do the usual verification over the internet to Microsoft so I could activate my windows software since I just reinstalled it.  I went ahead and did that and it was hunky dorey with that.  I finished installing my hardware drivers for my motherboard and video card and proceeded to restart my computer.  Once restarted, it asked to reverify my XP install as if I just changed my hardware again!?  So out of my own curiosity I went ahead and let it reverify and it gave me a red flag.  Gave me some rubish indicating that I should call their customer service or get another windows key.  Way to think I’m trying to pirate your software, Microsoft…

Zancarius put it best.  They assume you’re a software pirate before you’ve even installed the software!  So instead of screwing around with their silly time consuming customer service, I decided to check out Windows 7.  I got it installed last night but haven’t had much time to screw around with it.  I didn’t like Vista so we will see what Windows 7 has to offer.  In any case, I may have to get it when it comes out.  I view Vista as another Windows ME.  POS software that should’ve never been made.  It was a funky hybrid of Windows 98 and 2000 it seemed.  Not fully one or the other.