'Steam' beginning to get to me

[jetgriff]

What on earth is 'Steam' loading into my computer?

Everytime i let it go online it starts downloading, last time it was 175 megs, this is 20% of my monthly allowance, (1gig) .

today I logged in again and it started downloading again..... how am I supposed to have enough megs left to get South Devon Banks V14 up when I cant get enough megs free because Steam has used them ..

Is there a way to stop 'Steam' behaving as if it owns my computer?

[Darpor]

Cant imagine what this is. Never had this myself, Steam never really intrudes apart from the advertising when closing Railworks. The only downloads I have had are RW updates or add-ons, both of which I am in control of, nothing has ever downloaded un-announced, especially not of that size!

[ashgray]

What on earth is 'Steam' loading into my computer?

Everytime i let it go online it starts downloading, last time it was 175 megs, this is 20% of my monthly allowance, (1gig) .

today I logged in again and it started downloading again..... how am I supposed to have enough megs left to get South Devon Banks V14 up when I cant get enough megs free because Steam has used them ..

Is there a way to stop 'Steam' behaving as if it owns my computer?

Well, yes - just turn off the automatic updates.

Ash

[Darpor]

There must be something more to it than that though Ash. 175mb????

[CaptScarlet]

When ever I get a update I use the search feature in Vista / Win7 ( I have it saved ) to find what has changed on whatever date the download happens ( searching for the modified date of files in the RW folder for instance ). That way I know exactly what has been updated.

John

[g0fthick]

That is odd.

Whilst you can stop Steam from updating, when you do eventually feel the need to return to Online mode (whether it be for a content fix, a patch or a product), you're going to have those updates (plus more) waiting. On a 1gb monthly traffic limit you may find yourself in a spot of bother.

[demonshadow]

You'll find that Steam will update on a fairly regular basis what with all the Games now assosiated with it and the numerous updates to the software itself, this will probably be quite frequent compared to how it used to be some 5 years ago when it was mainly just Halflife, Day of Defeat, Counterstrike and the like

as Ash has said, if you don't want it to update turn the automatic updates off.