As of May 2011, all of the UCC's Windows machines run Steam. Steam presents an annoying set of problems, as it has not been engineered for a multi-user environment.

IMPORTANT: Winadmins and wheel members; don't run Steam.exe as Administrator. It will screw the permissions again.

To fix steam, you need to set Advanced Permissions (these instructions are for Windows 7):

1. Right click Steam directory
2. Choose Properties
3. Click Advanced button
4. Choose "Change Permissions..."
5. Delete any group listed except "Everyone", "gumby (UCCDOMAIN\gumby)", "wheel (UCCDOMAIN\wheel)", "winadmin (UCCDOMAIN\winadmin)" and "SYSTEM". If the list is missing any one of these groups, please add them.
6. Set groups "Everyone" and "gumby (UCCDOMAIN\gumby)" with all permissions to Allow EXCEPT "Full control", "Take ownership" and "Change permissions", which should not be ticked either way.
7. Set other groups to allow "Full Control"
8. Select option "Replace all child object permissions with inheritable permissions from this object"
9. Choose "Apply"
10. Close dialog and choose "Owner" tab
11. Ensure that owner is "SYSTEM"; if it is not, change it. Ensure you tick "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects".

How to fix steam beta problem on the mac when playing tf2 1. Completely quit steam 2. Open terminal 3. Type bash 4. Type /Applications/Steam.app/Contents/MacOS/osx32/ipcserver 5. Leave terminal open 6. Re-open steam