Recently as of this writing (27 July 2018), Steam has begun opening the chat Friends popup whenever I login to my Windows 10 account:
I can't figure out how to stop this without disabling Steam itself from starting up—which I want it to do, for auto-updating and so that my VR headset will be ready.
On Steam Communities, there's a prevalent suggestion that the following sequence can stop this:
- After logging in and the Steam chat window opens, open the full Steam app.
- Close the Steam chat window.
- Close Steam's app window.
- Relog from Windows.
but in my trials, this has no effect.
There are no obvious settings for this by clicking the gear icon (highlighted in red in the above image):
I found what seemed to be a promising option in the Steam application's settings → "Interface" → "Set Taskbar Preferences":
but, as advertised, it only affects the choices available if you right-click on the Steam icon in the taskbar:
Unticking "Friends" and relogging does not change the popup behavior at startup.
How can I prevent this window from opening every time I login? The Steam application itself opens in the background; I'd like the chat to do the same.
Best Answer
This is fixed in the latest beta, and should be a part of the next public client update. announcement:
In a way it's nice that they're mostly using pure HTML/CSS/JS for the new chat as it's very easy for them to add new features in comparison to the old client, but they really should've put more work into porting existing features & UI settings.