SteamWatch

What is it?

SteamWatch is a Windows Service which monitors Valve's Steam application and block connections to servers which aren't explicitly defined. This allows you to block connections to servers which are overseas and metered by your ISP. It comes operational with the Internode unmetered IP addresses or GameArena steam servers.

What do I need?

• Windows XP/Vista (32-bit and 64-bit).
• The .net 2.0 Framework (Windows Vista users already have this installed).

Latest

I have released the source code for anyone who wants to see it, improve it or do whatever the hell they want with it. You'll be needing Visual Studio 2008 before you can view it, I think the express edition of Visual Studio C# (available free from the Microsoft website) will do the trick. Even though all the folders inside the ZIP archive say that it's version 2, it isn't - it's the latest version. There is also a unfinished SteamWatch Settings GUI written in XAML - which is something I was experimenting with while trying to learn the new markup language. Anyway, I hope the ones out there with an interest in programming will find some use out of it.

• More settings (you could use SteamWatch on basically any application, if you can think of any reason to do so)
• Check intervals (checking for steam to start interval and checking IP address connections interval)
• Process name (some anti-virus applications may redirect the Steam port to another process; you could modify this setting to the process name with the connection)
• Port
• Enable / Disable writing blocked IPs to event log
• Enable / Disable writing steam state changes (Steam is running, Steam has exited) to the event log
• Enable / Disable IP blocking (useful for when you just want to use the new Automatic Shutdown feature without blocking unwanted IP addresses)
• Automatic Shutdown feature: useful for when you are downloading large games with Steam and you want your computer to turn off, hibernate or stand by when the downloading stops after a predefined length of time. You can also choose to exit SteamWatch or Steam
• All SteamWatch settings can be modified with the new Settings user interface accessible via the Start menu or SteamWatch tray.
• IP addresses and settings are now saved in an XML file (SteamWatchSettings.xml)
• You can now select during install: IP address lists for GameArena (Bigpond users), Internode or both combined
• Fixed a bug in the tray icon for Vista users: When UAC requests to raise privileges and you click Cancel it would crash
• Made it so multiple instances of SteamWatch Tray is prevented

• New optional system tray icon to easily edit the allowedip.txt, view the event log and start or stop the SteamWatch service. The tray icon works independant of the SteamWatch service; if you exit the tray icon, the SteamWatch service will still be running. (If you don't want the tray icon running at startup deselect the option to in the install)
• For Windows Vista users, you know longer need to right click and select "Run as administrator" button on the "Start SteamWatch" and "Stop SteamWatch" links in the start menu.
• Slightly less entries in the event-log. Instead of a new event for every single IP blocked it will list together IPs that were blocked at the same time.
• Cleaned up code and now it is more efficient.
• Removed options to pause and continue service. (they were useless anyway)

If you downloaded SteamWatch before the 29/03/08 then you should edit the AllowedIPs.txt file and change the IP address 150.101.20.97 to 150.101.120.97 (Sydney Steam server) - for some reason Internode had this wrong on their unmetered IP addresses list.

FAQs

When I run SteamWatch, it doesn't download at all.

This can happen because the local servers are too full. It may be possible that the game you are trying to download isn't being hosted by any servers in the SteamWatch allow list. Moments like this, unfortunatley, SteamWatch can't help. This will be a bigger problem for GameArena users because there are only two Steam servers.

Other connection problems...

Somtimes stopping SteamWatch, deleting the ClientRegistry.blob file from the Steam directory and restarting Steam can help.

Can it work with other ISPs other than Internode?

Yes. In SteamWatch 3 you can choose to install an IP list specifically for Internode, GameArena or a combination of both.

How does the Automatic Shutdown feature operate?

It works simply by watching the connections that Steam is making and when there are no connections made by Steam on port 27030 (common for downloading on Steam) it will begin a countdown, which is defined by the user (in minutes). If no new connections are made in that time, it will shutdown your computer (or whatever you chose it to do). If you exit Steam, this will also trigger the countdown to begin. When the shutdown begins the feature is turned off. You can enable and disable the feature in the Settings window, accessible via the tray icon or the start menu.

You can use the automatic shutdown feature without the IP blocking, if you want, by unchecking the Block Connections checkbox in the Settings window. This setting will ensure that it will still monitor connections made but will not disconnect any.

I have a bug or an idea to improve this!

Please let me know at ultimategrandson@internode.on.net

Download it

Make sure you close the SteamWatch tray icon and uninstall any old version of SteamWatch first.

Download SteamWatch 3 (10/4/08)
Download SteamWatch 2 (29/3/08)

Download SteamWatch 3 Source Code (C# 2.0)