Error playing game: Steam is not running. You must start steam in order to play this game

[Harin$Akshi]

Whenever I play the Left 4 dead game I always get the error message saying that "Steam is not running. You must start steam in order to play this game". This only happens when I start the game from the task bar or form the .exe file from the folder of the left 4 dead. But when I try to play the game from the Steam it does not give any message. This is the most irritating part, for opening the game you need to go to the steam and from the library you need to play the game instead of direct clicking on the game. Can anyone let me know that how can I stop this?

[RyanInt]

For me, when I play the game it automatically start the Steam game, when I click on .exe of the game that I wish to play. Actually it does automatically for all my games that I play. So I think you need to check that has your game properly connected to the Steam or not. But if you can play through the steam then what is the need to worry about it. You can just go in to the library and get it connected.

[MacIntel]

I think you might have some problem with the Steam that is the reason it may not allow you to get the game connected. So what you need to do is, you should delete the clientregistry.blob file. This has fixed the issues many a times. You can find this file located in the folder of your main Steam directory. So delete the clientregistry.blob file and then restart your Steam and try playing the game again, this would probably solve your issue.

[Wyvern]

What as you said is that you should include the Steam client running for you to play the game. For any of the reasons that it says you can do one thing and that is, you can download the Steam client for free from the official website of Steam. After install the client you can now try playing your game through the .exe of the game that you want to get it played by the Steam.

[desilva]

Have you tried installing the left 4 dead game again and tried connecting it to it. If no then you need to install the game that you have once again and then install the stand alone patch of the game 1.0.14. After installing the patch now install the standalone 1.19a.exe. Now put the UnDeadPatch.exe file in the bin folder of the lost 4 dead in order to fix the steam.dll. After performing all the above steps now you can enjoy playing the game.

[Squibbit]

Are you running a pirated game? If this is the thing then it may give you some problems while connecting you game. It can be that your game has not patched properly with the Steam. So you need to get a new and original copy if the game in order to get it well connected. Because, if you are having the pirated game then the patch file or any of the file might be corrupted or it may have a bug in it. Once you get the original game you can connect your patch and run the game without any error.

[ApplePowerPC]

I got it worked for one of my game that was giving me the same error. What I did is, I just added a new rule in the firewall settings and let it go. Because I think in the months some of the updates for the firewall or the game might have made the change. So that’s the reason that my old firewall settings did not worked. So you can also try some changes in the firewall or check your game patch that is responsible for your game to get it connected.