www.abithelp.com

I thought I would share this since it saved me probably about 30 hours of re-downloading all the Steam Games I already had installed.

Open your Steam Games list. Go to "File" in the upper left of the tool bar. Choose "backup games". You will get a list of all the Steam games you have installed. Check mark the ones you want to backup. Pick the location to back them up to, you can even make a new file folder if you want, but I used the default. Then just say "backup games" and let Steam do it's thing. All of your local files will be saved. I had over 42Gb of files! Took about 30 minutes to save them all. I chose to save them in DVD size chunks. You can choose CD size chunks if you want, too.

Once you have reinstalled Windows, or like me, installed Win 7 Ultimate, find the folder (mine was on the Win 7 RC drive which is still connected in the same PC) so you know where it is. Install Steam on your new system. Then, I copied the "backup" folder into the Steam folder in my new Win 7. Open the Backup folder (it will be named for the first game in the list of games that you saved) Double click on the first DVD (or CD) in the list and choose the Steam Installer. It will do the rest. Took maybe another 25 minutes to reinstall all the games!

Now I just need to find where all the Save Games are. I remember where Far Cry 2 was so that's done already.

Great short cut that saves one hell of a lot of downloading! Chris.

Great suggestion Chris and I decided to do it this way after contemplating just copying the Steam Folder over as I previously posted and then trashed.

Once you have installed a Steam game, the files are on your PC. So when you back them up, it is just taking the files and putting them into a folder, in chunks so you can burn them to disk if you want. Or just copy the folder from one hard drive to the next. Chris.

Mr. Chris wrote:Once you have installed a Steam game, the files are on your PC. So when you back them up, it is just taking the files and putting them into a folder, in chunks so you can burn them to disk if you want. Or just copy the folder from one hard drive to the next. Chris.

Thanks Chris, just a stupid Steam newbie user error. I selected multiple games to be backed up at once. Apparently Steam uses the first game to name the backup folder, in my case the first game was in the list was Fallout 3. The Fallout 3 Backup folder was much larger than the actual Fallout folder so wrongly ass-umed it was actually making install discs as in retail versions.

One thing to note is that if you actually back these up on a DVD or CD that on Vista/Win 7 the backup restore utility doesn't work. It will try and extract all the files onto the disk instead of the hard drive and say the disk is full (obviously). You need to copy all the files onto your HDD which means alot of extra effort and wasted time.

randomizer wrote:One thing to note is that if you actually back these up on a DVD or CD that on Vista/Win 7 the backup restore utility doesn't work. It will try and extract all the files onto the disk instead of the hard drive and say the disk is full (obviously). You need to copy all the files onto your HDD which means alot of extra effort and wasted time.

Didn't realize that, Randy, because I didn't burn and DVD's, I just moved the entire backup game folder (mine was named Alpha Prime, the first game that was on the list) from one drive to the other, then opened the folder and double clicked on the first "DVD" in that folder.

But even with having to copy the contents of each DVD to the hard drive, would still save me 28 hours or so of download time, with my Internet connection anyways. Chris.

Wait, isn't there a drop down box that gives you the option where to install the games to?

All I do is take my Main Steam Folder (has everything in it) and save it anywhere you want, like a DVD or what ever.

Then when I format I just drop that folder into my new formatted drive where is used to be, make sure you put it in the correct place

Program Files (X86) should be one BIG ASS folder, then run ass admin. Open, pin the Steam Launch Icon to the start Programs.

Click on the Steam Icon there and Boom your right where you left off. Works perfect for me.

But you guys do it how ever you wish, whatever works best for you, my method always works perfect, even knows my log-in info, everything.



Love this Method!!

Blue

In fact I'm playing SiN: Emergence right now!!

i just copy paste the whole of steam... works every time

Hmmmm. Maybe I'll uninstall Steam, delete the folder and do it like Blue suggested. Because I don't look forward to starting all my games over, and I'll be damned if I can find the save games in some of these games. FC2 was fine but the rest, *sigh*. It should only take an hour. Then I'll have to fix this Thread to show Blue's suggestion instead of my lame n00b one. Chris.

St__Evil wrote:i just copy paste the whole of steam... works every time

That's how I was going to do it in the first place. However I did not know enough about Steam and how it interacts with the Registry. I thought it may write to the Registry once per game install so I thought Chris' way might be better. Guess I'll do it the way I was originally going to do it then since you and Blue say it works. I'll keep the backup folder just in case though. Thanks Guys.