I get the Error: 'This game is currently unavailable' when connecting through Steam

There are a number of things that can cause "game unavailable" to show up.

1. You have a firewall blocking ports - you need to remove all existing permissions and let the firewall re-learn them, do not just assume that if they are in there they are ok, they must be removed and re-learned, especially after a Steam update.

2. You have zonealarm (or some other firewall) installed under SP2 firewall. You can only run one firewall at a time and you MUST remove all existing permissions before you disable a firewall.

ZoneAlarm has historically caused the most problems with Steam of any program. If you have any connection problems and you run ZA, uninstall it and run only the XP SP2 firewall.

Even a "good" ZA install can cause odd lag, again, if you have connection problems of any kind, uninstall it and use the XP firewall. If you are running Win2k, you still need to prove that ZA is or is not the problem. Sometimes uninstalling and re-installing will fix it (for a while).

3. You have some of the game content marked read-only which can happen if you copy from a CD backup. You need to make sure all files are read/write (you can mark your config.cfg r/o though).

4. You moved a Steam install manually and didn't delete the clientregistry.blob file

5. This might also happen if you have bad content in the GCF, you can verify the game content easily:
How can I verify that my GCF Cache files are good?

6. You have the game marked "do not automatically update" in the game properties (but there is an update required).

7. You have some application or some form of spyware that has hijacked your Network connection. Be sure to uninstall these programs from the add/remove in the control panel (if you can).

8. You are running something like netlimiter - all old versions of this are problematic and the latest version might cause problems if improperly configured. When in doubt, uninstall and see if you still have this problem.

9. You are running cybersitter / cybernanny or Yahoo Parental Control which might block Steam from properly updating

10. You have Stardock windowblinds installed on your system (all 3rd party windows theme programs are highly suspect). Uninstall these.

11. You are trying to run the game from a college or university network and they have ports blocked.

12. You may have a disk problem of some kind, try uninstalling and then re-installing Steam on a different physical disk.

13. If you run out of disk space (for any reason) you will also probably get "Game Unavailable".

Some additional things to try to check for problems:

Bypass your router especially if it's a wireless router and plug directly into your modem.

Wireless routers can also cause a second or two of lag every minute or two, this is cause actually by the XP "Wireless Zero" service which you should disable before you play games.

Linksys Routers have a known problem with the current firmware, you need to run an older firmware version or you'll have connection problems.

If none of these suggestions solve your particular problem, then go to the support website and submit your msinfo32 report and be sure to include your network hardware details.

How to run and submit MSINFO32 Info reports

Finally, this error can happen when the Steam Network is experiencing problems or downtime.

Please refer to the Steam Network Status page:
http://www.steampowered.com/status/status.html

If you are getting this error and the Steam Network is up there are a couple of things that you can try.

1. First thing to try is to exit from Steam and go rename this file (wherever you have Steam installed):
C:\Program Files\Valve\Steam\ClientRegistry.blob

rename that to ~ClientRegistry.blob

When you start Steam up, there should be a short update and then you will be prompted to log in

If you don't get the update then there is a good chance you have a firewall problem.

Usually at this point Steam will give you a message about how you won't be able to log in until you have an internet connection because you used "exit and logout" the last time.

To fix this you need to remove all references to Steam.exe and hl.exe from your firewall permissions.

If you don't have a firewall installed you might have an anti-virus tool installed that has a firewall or internet security feature that needs to be managed the same way.

If you ever installed a firewall product and did not use the normal uninstall procedure (if you deleted the firewall installation manually) then you might still have part of the firewall that you did not remove which is causing you problems. Often the only way to fix this is to re-install the firewall and then use the correct uninstall procedure.