Removing FM2012 key from steam

I wasn't going to get this version at all because of all the problems I have read about it and I was going to see if the next version avoided using the steam rubbish. However, I received 2012 for Christmas and thought I should try to get it installed, so I set up a steam account just for this.

The shortcut icons do not have proper picture icons, just the blank-no-icon type look. The shortcuts are url's rather than to the game exe's. Not sure if that is normal but clicking them does try to start the apps up.

After the install the game will not launch - it crashes with a 'serious error'. I have verified cache and had innumerable deletions and reinstalls. Still crashes. Download the editor - this also crashes. Uninstalled/reinstalled steam as well just in case - steam seemed to think I was connecting from a different computer on the reinstall which obviously I wasn't, but had to obtain some code from email to continue.

Graphics are the most recent for my card.

Loaded my current FM2011 instead to test if this was still OK - this plays fine.

Tried changing desktop resolutions to see if this was causing the game to crash as I had a problem with FM2011 at one time where it would crash on start up (I cannot play FM2011 in full screen mode and there are no options for different res in settings). I now play FM2011 on a desktop set to 1280x800).

Went into steam options to set start up as -windowed to see if this would help. Now when I try to start I am getting the message the game is unavailable, etc. Looking in the steamapps folder I noticed there was no fm.exe file now and thinking this might have something to do with -windowed start up entry I removed the start up entry. Decided to remove FM again and now when trying to reinstall (yet again) from disc I get the message that I can't even install because the steam servers are too busy. Why do I need a steam server to install files from a disc....GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

I knew I was right in the first place to avoid this and wish I had never even started to attempt to install any of this shi-ite.

So my question is how do you de-register the game/code from steam to allow me to give the game to someone else and allow me to close my new steam account and continue to play in peace with FM2011 (installed from disc and played with the disc in the drive)?

You can't de-register it. Once it's been activated, that's it.

You could have something on your computer that clashes with Steam there is a list on the Steam forum which I think is also accessible through the FAQ on here.

A few people had problems with virus software and others.

Still can't reinstall FILES FROM DISC because of steam servers being too busy!!! Not that there is any point as it doesn't work any way.

One of the other things I tried was thinking maybe the game would play in pre-patched form (with the updates maybe causing the crash) , so I tried to install and play it without updating. But even though in steam you can set the option to not update the game automatically - it just ignores this and continues to try and update automatically anyway.

I give up.

You could have something on your computer that clashes with Steam there is a list on the Steam forum which I think is also accessible through the FAQ on here.

A few people had problems with virus software and others.

I only have AVAST AV, no firewall. I cannot close this and I am certainly not going to uninstall it. Steam seemed to work OK. It is the game itself that was not working. It is only since that last uninstall the stema servers are stopping me from reinstalling.

Sorry you're having problems boragthung - try changing your download region to solve the 'too busy' error. There are some steps on doing so here. If once you've reinstalled again the fm.exe is missing, try verifying the game cache, this should resolve anything missing from the installation.

The game eventually installed again and the FM.exe is there version 12.1.1. I noticed when I had reinstalled steam the second time when I went to options the region was holland whereas it was london the first time, so I set it back. This was set automatically when it was installed so whether this has an effect in making steam think it has changed computer, I don't know - but it is completely stupid if that's the case. It was installed from the same file from the same location from the same computer.

Too busy watching the football now but I will make one more atttempt later to see if the game works (even though I really know it won't) and I will upload the dxdiag file and dump file (already saved) on the technical part of the forum later

Made a quick new thread in tech issues and uploaded my files to ftp site.

This is the first time I have been forced to use steam and although I don't think it is steam that is causing the crash problems starting the game I think it is a horrendous piece of software that adds unnecessary complexity to (hopefully) playing a game from disc.