I loaded up Steam this morning to find that in Avast's antivirus regular updates, they've decided that Steam is Win32 Malware or some such. So don't be surprised if you get the same too. The steam forums have a thread on it here for fixes or whatever. Seems this has happened with Avast before.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2524269&page=13

I sort of just woke up and can't give a definitive fix from my end (win XP svp.3), but the basic step-by-step solution seems to revolve around:

1 Close steam (if it isn't closed/can't run already from avast)

2 Update avast

3 Close any browsers, especially those with naughty tabs

4 Disable avast shields (right-click icon thing down in the menu bar)

5 Open steam, update it

6 Close steam

7 Restore (right click) steam thingies from avast virus chest list (under "maintenance"), then remove/delete them

8 Turn on avast shields again

9 Try running steam again

10 Bang head off keyboard when that ladies voice pops up again

11 Click "false positive" on the pop up window QUICKLY BEFORE IT GOES AWAY

12 Cry because you can't play any of your summer sale purchases

13 Send error report thing to avast (tick box that says "I know what I'm doing")

14 Cry again because the L4D2 Cold Stream campaign just got released

15 Get on with life.

[Just an FYI to everyone is that if you do end up deleting the .dll file from the virus chest before restoring it (even though the file won't disappear from the chest's list, but after that I think you can delete it from the list, because it will still be there in the list), Steam might not be able to update due to the lack of said file. The steam installer won't fix it either.

So, if you have already deleted the .dll file without restoring it and have this problem, just copy the steamapps folder to another location onto your computer, uninstall and reinstall steam, and then move the folder back in to its proper location. That should do it. Courtesy of @Grillbar]

Additional steps that can be added in at any stage are:

- Post topic on GB

- Fap

- Drink coffee

- Fap again

- Respond to sarky remarks in GB topic

- Probably go to your school or office or wherever you get/spend money

For those who don't care or TLDR, obligatory image macro to round this thread off.

Disable Shields. Play Games. Enable Shields Afterwards.

@Karmic_Revenge said:

Disable Shields. Play Games. Enable Shields Afterwards.

That's all fine and dandy until something like this happens

http://www.strategyinformer.com/news/18546/dayz-hit-by-malicious-malware-security-breach

All the steam games are kept updated, so any steam game you're playing is already scanned. You're safe. Avast will update by tomorrow to handle this. OR you can just complain that you can't play, when you can, but choose not to. Personally, my shields are off and I am playing Portal 2.

thx dude but what if i did the additional steps before any of the other ones. i will admit that i replaced coffee with red bull since i never learned how to drink coffee.

@Karmic_Revenge said:

All the steam games are kept updated, so any steam game you're playing is already scanned. You're safe. Avast will update by tomorrow to handle this. OR you can just complain that you can't play, when you can, but choose not to. Personally, my shields are off and I am playing Portal 2.

You misunderstand. None of the games are the problem, it's the steam.exe client that avast thinks is the malware.

I'm not complaining either.

My neopet is probably dead at this point...

Sorry, your post reads like "don't turn your shields off tonight to play on steam look what happened to dayz" . . . and the original post references a lot of crying . . . soooo, yeah.

I solved the problem in 3 easy steps.

1. Uninstall Avast
2. Reboot computer
3. Install Microsoft Security Essentials

I really dislike the direction Avast has taken lately anyway, so good riddance.

@Grillbar said:

thx dude but what if i did the additional steps before any of the other ones. i will admit that i replaced coffee with red bull since i never learned how to drink coffee.

Clean your keyboard.

Another suggestion is that once you're done with those steps, set up avast to do a bootscan first and restart your computer before leaving your house/flat/dungeon with lights. By the time you're back, any other crap on your computer you might not be aware of should be dealt with too.

@Karmic_Revenge said:

Sorry, your post reads like "don't turn your shields off tonight to play on steam look what happened to dayz" . . . and the original post references a lot of crying . . . soooo, yeah.

@dudeglove said:

Additional steps that can be added in at any stage are:

- Post topic on GB

- Respond to sarky remarks in GB topic

@dudeglove said:

@Karmic_Revenge said:

Disable Shields. Play Games. Enable Shields Afterwards.

That's all fine and dandy until something like this happens

http://www.strategyinformer.com/news/18546/dayz-hit-by-malicious-malware-security-breach

exactly. if you can't find a fix, and you're not paying for the premium avast Id go to MS essentials which apparently has stepped its game as of late. Avast always terminated my steam games on launch and I always had to go give each game permissions so they would run

yes Avast shut down steam on my pc, only thing do to is to add the entire steam folder on the exclusion list and you are good to go.

Nope. It asks every once in a while to open steam in a sandbox but that's easily remedied.

Uninstall 'em, play games, don't visit weird sites and don't download weird shit = you'll be fine. Can't believe people actually pay money for that stuff.

To me Avast didn't give any positives concerning Steam.

@Xymox said:

Uninstall 'em, play games, don't visit weird sites and don't download weird shit = you'll be fine. Can't believe people actually pay money for that stuff.

Yeah, never understood why people bought health insurance either. Eat well, never leave your house = you'll be fine. Can't believe people actually pay money for that stuff.

It did a few days ago, now its working again.
 
Avast knows its going to get the fuck uninstalled if it acts up, I hate programs that make problems out of nothing.

There Falseways...

@President_Barackbar said:

@Xymox said:

Uninstall 'em, play games, don't visit weird sites and don't download weird shit = you'll be fine. Can't believe people actually pay money for that stuff.

Yeah, never understood why people bought health insurance either. Eat well, never leave your house = you'll be fine. Can't believe people actually pay money for that stuff.

You can't be serious about comparing medical health insurance to virus programs, software, on a computer. Common sense will get you a long way with software, medical not so much as it can be out of your own sphere of influence. I can't put a new hard drive into my body. I can't safe mode my body. I can't boot up Linux in my body. I can't backup my body.

Sorry, but no. Your comparison is way off, try again.

Last time I had a virus must've been like what? 2001 or something? Should the event for some reason arise that I do, I know how to solve it. And the way to solve it is much easiter than anything you'd need health (or heck, even house insurance) for. Virus programs are way over-hyped, but have fun paying for them if that's your cup of tea and if you have money to spend on a false sense of security and fear-mongering propaganda.

If you know what you're doing, you don't need virus programs.

@Xymox:

@President_Barackbar said:

@Xymox:

I do see the point you're trying to make though, don't get me wrong. In my opinion though, it's way off.

YES IT HAPPENED TO ME AND YES I WASTED ALOT OF TIME TO MAKE SURE IT WAS A FALSE POSITIVE!

God damn Avast. A few months ago they released an update that flagged any .html file as a virus. I THOUGHT MY COMPUTER EXPLODED WITH MALWARE OR SOMETHING!

They really need to be more careful with false-positives. I have it disabled for now. Pissed me off to no end

Had that happen to me. Thought I actually got something for a while there. Good to know it was nothing.

Is Microsoft Security Essentials really better? Last time I used it on my old XP machine the computer refused to shut-down every time after installation.

@C_Rakestraw said:

Is Microsoft Security Essentials really better? Last time I used it on my old XP machine the computer refused to shut-down every time after installation.

I think it is. And believe me I was as surprised as you may be.

I've had it catch stuff and fix problems Norton,McaFee, AVG and Avast! haven't. Plus it seems to run very unobtrusively. Much less of resource hog than Norton. SE got me out of a couple jams last year when nothing else worked.

Just an FYI to everyone is that if you do end up deleting the .dll file from the virus chest before restoring it (even though the file won't disappear from the chest's list, but after that I think you can delete it from the list, because it will still be there in the list), Steam might not be able to update due to the lack of said file. The steam installer won't fix it either.

So, if you have already deleted the dll file and have this problem, just copy the steamapps folder to another location onto your computer, uninstall and reinstall steam, and then move the folder back in to its proper location. That should do it. Courtesy of @Grillbar

@iMort said:

I solved the problem in 3 easy steps.

1. Uninstall Avast
2. Reboot computer
3. Install Microsoft Security Essentials

I really dislike the direction Avast has taken lately anyway, so good riddance.

faster way for me was

1. update avast
2. business as usual

well thats after i fucked a few things up since i was not thinking.

@dudeglove said:

[Just an FYI to everyone is that if you do end up deleting the .dll file from the virus chest before restoring it (even though the file won't disappear from the chest's list, but after that I think you can delete it from the list, because it will still be there in the list), Steam might not be able to update due to the lack of said file. The steam installer won't fix it either.

So, if you have already deleted the .dll file without restoring it and have this problem, just copy the steamapps folder to another location onto your computer, uninstall and reinstall steam, and then move the folder back in to its proper location. That should do it. Courtesy of @Grillbar]

Additional steps that can be added in at any stage are:

and if a game is yellow/gold after you have done this and says something like download temperately paused (or whatever it is) just launch the game and its fine no need to reinstall or anything

Edit: just in case you fucked everything up as i did