Quote Originally Posted by Lemur
One thing that may help with the headaches: Prevent Steam from starting up automatically. It's pretty easy.

On the Start menu, go to Run > msconfig > Startup > Steam

Click it off, and you're done. Might want to turn off some other botherware while you're there.
Overly complecated. Especially when steam has "start steam at windows start-up?" tick box.