Running games after windows reinstallation without installing them

Enochian · December 28, 2019

Hi Guys,

Last night I had to reinstall windows 10.
It was on C drive. On a separate drive (not partition) I had steam with some games.

I was pretty sure that i will have to delete everything and install again. Which was the case for 99% of games.

Luckily enough i reinstalled steam but kept the folder with games, and the only one still working is RDR 2 .
I don't quite understand it. It's not visible in control panel or anywhere. Just in steam library and i can launch normally with no problems.

Are there any downsides of it?

Most important : is there a way to make it visible as a proper installation (regedit?) without deleting and downloading again?

LogicalDrm · December 29, 2019

You may need to verify files on each game. Otherwise, if the files are there, it's not issue. You wouldn't use Windows for uninstalling either so that doesn't matter.

Mark Kaine · December 29, 2019

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=8379-RYIP-2998

It's a bit convoluted, but once you know what you have to do its not that hard either

PS: if your games really don't get recognized this way, *don't* reinstall them for now... There are other ways to make Steam recognize them, but this method really should work 99% of the time!