So, you can do a couple of things:<p>* Start Steam when you log in to your computer, but have yourself signed out of Friends so you don&#x27;t get friend activity notifications.<p>* If you&#x27;re concerned about data usage, or don&#x27;t want all of your games to update when you launch Steam, set your games to only update when you launch them. [0] Sadly, there&#x27;s no way that I can see to make this the default update strategy, so you have to do this for every game in your library that has annoyingly frequent updates. :( Also note that you can configure Steam to not download updates when a game is running [1] and that Steam makes the update game you&#x27;re trying to launch the highest-priority download.<p>* Run Steam in Offline mode (assuming you&#x27;re not playing multiplayer games ;) ) : <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;support.steampowered.com&#x2F;kb_article.php?ref=3160-AGCB-2555" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;support.steampowered.com&#x2F;kb_article.php?ref=3160-AGC...</a><p>Sadly, I don&#x27;t see any way to run some sort of &quot;Steam client and game updating&quot; service that runs in the background and <i>just</i> keeps the client and your games updated even while you&#x27;re not logged in to either Steam or your Windows account.<p>[0] Right-click on the game-&gt;Properties-&gt;Updates, change the value of the &quot;Automatic updates&quot; dropdown menu to &quot;Only update this game when I launch it&quot;.<p>[1] IIRC, this is the default setting.