Hi .... and welcome to the forums
Looks like you've run into a very badly designed uninstall program. It also looks like it has misbehaved for quite a few other Steam users. The trouble sees to occur when Steam in installed into a location other than the default location (in "Program Files").
Witness -
https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/541907867783332303/
https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/458606877314562648/
I'm glad that you figured out that System Restore works to make your desktop available again.
I didn't see any obvious information yet on a way to have Steam automatically uninstall - without causing the same issues again. The Steam installer seems to uninstall other objects in the folder into which it is installed. Not wonderful.
If you are tech-savvy, you can try:
1) Manually find and remove the Steam folders (using File Explorer) from the location you originally installed them.
2) Also search for and remove any Steam folders in Program Files, Program Files (x86), and Program Data.
3) In Registry Editor, search for and remove entries for Steam.
4) ... as an alternate to step 3 - you can try using CCleaner to find and remove orphan Steam entries from your Registry ... CCleaner can keep backups of the entries, so that you can "undo" their removal if things go sideways. Use the free version of CCleaner, over at Piriform - Download CCleaner - Millions of users worldwide!
That should do it.
Let us know if you have any questions.
Looks like you've run into a very badly designed uninstall program. It also looks like it has misbehaved for quite a few other Steam users. The trouble sees to occur when Steam in installed into a location other than the default location (in "Program Files").
Witness -
https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/541907867783332303/
https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/458606877314562648/
I'm glad that you figured out that System Restore works to make your desktop available again.
I didn't see any obvious information yet on a way to have Steam automatically uninstall - without causing the same issues again. The Steam installer seems to uninstall other objects in the folder into which it is installed. Not wonderful.
If you are tech-savvy, you can try:
1) Manually find and remove the Steam folders (using File Explorer) from the location you originally installed them.
2) Also search for and remove any Steam folders in Program Files, Program Files (x86), and Program Data.
3) In Registry Editor, search for and remove entries for Steam.
4) ... as an alternate to step 3 - you can try using CCleaner to find and remove orphan Steam entries from your Registry ... CCleaner can keep backups of the entries, so that you can "undo" their removal if things go sideways. Use the free version of CCleaner, over at Piriform - Download CCleaner - Millions of users worldwide!
That should do it.
Let us know if you have any questions.
