See if any of these processes show up in your process list.
Steam.exe
GameOverlay.exe
hl2.exe (or any other steam game)
After deleting clientregistry.blob and steamclient.dll Steam should be forced to start an update (the crappy old green Steam looking window with a yellow progress bar)
It may just be in the background downloading the update and not showing up b/c its hidden behind something, in otherwords its possible you could just restart your comptuer, try to start Steam, and give it enough time to complete an update... its not likely but it could happen.