steam.exe task purpose and description:

Steam.exe is an executable file, and it most likely was installed by you on your computer, as this would not have been preinstalled software on your computer. Always check the file location which is shown for you below, as this is a way to verify you have the correct file. Often spyware or virus writers use similiar names in hopes to fool you into thinking it may be a good file, but they place the spyware or virus in other disk or folder locations with a similiar name. This Steam.exe file is used by many of those who are playing online games. This monitors and patches various items based on online game playing, usually revolving around first person shooter online gaming. This is not needed if you are not playing online games over the web anymore, otherwise it is fine to leave this running. This Steam.exe file will also run automatically everytime your system is rebooted. This file is considered to be safe and is not spyware or virus related software. (See the details below for the actual location of this file.)

Actual process or task name: (You can view alphabetical task list here)
steam.exe

File type:
This is an exe file

Where is this file and folder located on my computer?
"C:\Program Files\Steam\Steam.exe" -silent (This is how the entry appears in your registry, and also the folder that it will be found in).

General information:
Be aware that many tasks will be similiar names to existing tasks or processes. You can always view the running tasks on your computer by pressing ctrl-alt-del to view the windows "task manager", and then view the "processes" tab. This will show you all tasks running or currently active on your PC. Although this shows you all running tasks, it does not show dll file thats are loaded, as they get loaded as part of other processes. Many spyware writers attempt to hide their files on your computer, for example, steam.exe may be intentionally misspelled to look like a similiar task, or spyware may be named very similiar to a Windows system task. The reason they do this is so you cannot easily recognize the name in your tasklist as I have mentioned above. Make sure always check the location of the file if you are concerned. You can always find the location of steam.exe on your computer by using your Windows search options, but I will also try to list the file location of every file described on this website, so you can verify the correct location. You can view the entire tasklist directory with the link below.

View entire task list here!