Steam will not load with any icons or launchers (error message)

[throwitaway19]

No matter what launcher or icon I try, I get the following error when trying to load steam from it:

"Steam - Fatal Error

Failed to load steamui.dll"

Yet a normal Windows Shortcut on the desktop, pointing to the exact same address, works fine... what gives?

Other programs work fine (test itunes, spotify app, and mozilla so far)

[jsmorley]

No matter what launcher or icon I try, I get the following error when trying to load steam from it:

"Steam - Fatal Error

Failed to load steamui.dll"

Yet a normal Windows Shortcut on the desktop, pointing to the exact same address, works fine... what gives?

Other programs work fine (test itunes, spotify app, and mozilla so far)

I would reinstall Steam. This sounds like a path issue. A shortcut can have a "starting folder", but a shell command can't.

[throwitaway19]

I will say that on PC#1 it was a fresh steam install. One variable is that steam previously resided on a different drive. The fresh install was on a new drive (new Windows install on a new SDD).

On PC#2, steam exists on the same drive as steamapps, but is a different drive than C:\ (rainmeter drive). Not sure if that would cause an issue or not. I will say that I tried a Nexus dock (non-rainmeter), that was able to successfully load Steam via a dock icon there.

Let me know if you think it could still be a steam install issue based on the above added information...

[throwitaway19]

Steam was clean installed on the new Windows drive. Still not working. Not sure what to do...