Steam – Prevent uninstalling game via Steam

steam

I need a way to prevent removing a game via Steam. I shared my computer with my brothers, and while I am already able to disable the "Add or Remove Programs" option in Control Panel via Group Policy, this did not prevent another user from right-clicking the installed game and removing it without administrator consent.

Is Steam able to control this, or is there another way via Windows to block this kind of attempt?

Best Answer

You could attempt to make your own Steam skin, though I don't know if the context menu can be changed that way -- it may only be possible to edit the style of the menu and not the options it contains.

Beyond that you can (best to worst):

Install your games to an external drive and set it up as a Steam Library Folder, then when you use the machine make plug that drive in (and make sure it is mounted properly) before you start Steam.
Use a different OS-level user account. With yours separate from theirs unless they have admin access they would not be able to even access your data files to manually delete installed games, let alone use the Steam client to have all the hard work done for them.
This one could cause problems for the Steam client/the game itself, but you could setup a script to automate switching back and forth and use that before/after using the PC, and they could still circumvent this using admin access: Change the Steam/steamapps/ folder to read-only (when they're going to have the machine).

Steps

Log into Steam Support
Select Games, Software, etc.,
Select the game from the search function that shows up
Select the option: I want to permanently remove this game from my account.
Select the option: Ok, remove the listed games from my account permanently.
Repeat as many times as you have games you'd like to get rid of.

You can browse over your entire library and choose which software you'd like to permanently get rid of. But note, once you have removed a game from your library, it's gone permanently, so if later down the road you'd like it back you'll have to purchase it again.

You'll also need to watch out for some other issues. The thread linked above has noted that if the game is part of a bundle (HumbleBundle, etc.), removing one game from a "package" may require you to remove all the games from that specific bundle.

Steam – How to disable Steam from starting up with Windows without logging in to Steam

If you want to do this without starting Steam and logging in, you can modify the setting in the Windows registry. The autostart checkbox is directly tied to a registry key — simply deleting it is all the Steam client does when said checkbox is unchecked.

Navigate to HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run and delete the Steam key. Or as a .reg file:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run]
"Steam"=-

Best Answer

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