...in case anyone has the same problem (found this solution on the steam powered forums).
I've ended up with 2 accounts using the same Steam ID (this was down to Steam 'losing' one and forcing me to create another with a different email address
).
Then the lovely people at Valve contact me to let me know there are two accounts with the same CD key
Anyway, as a result of this, Steam deliberately 'loses' my CD key regularly and forces me to re-enter it when I try to join a server.
This appears to have done the trick (well its not asked for 2 days anyway !):
DISCLAIMER:
Do this if you want, but dont blame me when you break something
Run
regedit and navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
SOFTWARE
VALVE
STEAM
There you see several entries (SteamEx, Rate, etc).
If there is an entry name
InstallPath then delete it.
Next time you are asked to enter your CD key, enter it twice
e.g.
If your CD key is 1234 then enter 12341234
No spaces, just enter it twice
- it shouldn't ask you again
HTH