[slmclarengt]

I know I have been over the last few days. I have hated Steam all along with a passion when it came to pure functionality. But lately it has truly blown me over the edge to the point where I am contemplating flying to Bellevue (Seattle, WA area - or driving) just to say "hello" to VALVe because here's my issue.

I start up Counter-strike 1.6; rather than launching correctly, it loads the correct screen (the two CT's with their weapons) but instead of actually loading the game, it just stops there and does nothing. I tried removing files, reinstalling CS and have even reinstalled steam. I have tried multiple launch options however none have been able to restore any functionality. I cannot launch the game from 'My Games' list nor through 'Servers' choices and I'm quite enraged; perhaps time to research whether VALVe has done something illegal I can indict them on, but until them any help would be appreciated as to why this issue is not resolved.

Essentially the program is "Not Responding" once it's launched.

Note: OS = XP64. Other specs: 5600+ @ 2.8Ghz, 6GB DDR2 800Mhz, 8600GT Fatal1ty.

UPDATE: Windows Firewall is/was not on. I forced it off the harder way by removing it as a Service even. But I did fix the issue; it was Nvidia's fault, their "Network Access Manager" which didn't work right in the first place had installed "ActiveArmor" as a firewall and was ruining the network stack or some network settings and faulting CS from running correctly. Issue solved.

Slmclarengt