Steam games transfer.

[Juninio]

Hello everyone,

I'm making a new pc very soon and i'm switching from intel to amd, so i'm going to install a new windows. Now it brings the following question does the manually tranferred games have a chance to interfere with drivers? So do I transfer the game to an ssd and just do it like that. Or do I download it again on my new PC (I have a shit connection).

 

I'm not well informed on the transition from a pc to another.

 

Thank you in advance.

 

 

Mr.LovaLova

 

 

[Dedayog]

Just copy over, however is easiest for you.  Then have Steam scan for games on the new machine.

 

No driver issues at all.   It's really very simple and easy nowadays.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

No, the games can be used on any system.

Just copy them to a blank drive and show steam the games

[WereCat]

All you need is the Steam.exe and steamapps folder.

 

Backup those, then after you install your fresh OS put those files in whatever folder you want then run the Steam.exe and it will install fresh version of Steam and your games will be there (some game saves may be missing, not all games save their progress in this folder).

[mariushm]

If you want to be super thorough, you can go in Steam and select option Backup games ...  and it will export the game or games you select

When you import them on the new computer, with a menu option that's in same location, Steam will know it's a freshly "installed" game and will go through the "run on install"  like the game is freshly installed - some games have c++ runtimes or directx things that must be installed, which may be missing in a fresh Windows.

 

Otherwise, it's enough to just copy over the folder with the steam games and at most, you go to Properties on that game and click on check Integrity ... if there's a missing file or bad file, Steam will download just that file.

 

[MadGoatHaz]

Check this out:

Steam Support :: Moving a Steam Installation and Games (steampowered.com)

 

Move the install folder for each game you want to keep to whatever drive. Once the new OS and steam are installed, go to steam's storage manager (Settings>downloads>steam library folders) and add the steam folder on the drive you put it on. Steam will search and add the games accordingly. 

 

Hope that helps. Good luck to ya. 

[OhioYJ]

This is why I always recommend having your Steam library folder on another drive if possible. I've rebuilt my PC and reinstalled my OS many of times. Never an issue, just reinstall steam, tell my library folder is located: E:\SteamLibrary, games reinstalled.

 

Next saved games. Unfortunately developers seem to do whatever they want with game files, despite where the game is installed. So I have another folder on that second drive labeled Saved Game Backups. In there is where I back up all my saved game files. A quick check and my script is now 233 lines, but I didn't check create it over night. So the backup part uses xcopy instead of robocopy, as I never want things removed:

 

Quote

xcopy "C:\ProgramData\Slightly Mad Studios" "E:\Saved Game Backups\ProgramData\Slightly Mad Studios\" /d /y /r /h /s /c /f /i
xcopy "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata\*.*" "E:\Saved Game Backups\Steam\userdata\" /d /y /r /h /s /c /f /i
xcopy "C:\Program Files (x86)\Ubisoft\Ubisoft Game Launcher\savegames\*.*" "E:\Saved Game Backups\Ubisoft\Ubisoft Game Launcher\savegames\" /d /y /r /h /s /c /f /i
xcopy "C:\Users\mr5oh\AppData\Local\2K Games\*.*" "E:\Saved Game Backups\Users\mr5oh\AppData\Local\2K Games\" /d /y /r /h /s /c /f /i

 

^^ That is a few examples. The folders you will need are in LocalLow, Roaming, Documents, just your user folder, they will be scattered about. I then run that backup script every so often so it's updated. I also look for new folders to update it as I install and play new games.

 

However then if your username is the same on the new PC, the restore script ends up being quite simple (despite the backup script like mine have hundreds of lines to grab all the necessary folders):

 

Quote

xcopy "E:\Saved Game Backups\ProgramData\*.*" "C:\ProgramData\" /d /y /r /h /s /c /f /i
xcopy "E:\Saved Game Backups\Steam\*.*" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\" /d /y /r /h /s /c /f /i
xcopy "E:\Saved Game Backups\Ubisoft\*.*" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Ubisoft\" /d /y /r /h /s /c /f /i
xcopy "E:\Saved Game Backups\Users\mr5oh\AppData\*.*" "C:\Users\mr5oh\AppData\" /d /y /r /h /s /c /f /i
xcopy "E:\Saved Game Backups\Users\mr5oh\Documents\*.*" "C:\Users\mr5oh\Documents\" /d /y /r /h /s /c /f /i
xcopy "E:\Saved Game Backups\Users\mr5oh\Saved Games\*.*" "C:\Users\mr5oh\Saved Games\" /d /y /r /h /s /c /f /i

 

This should for the most part put your save games, options / settings, and everything back exactly how it was.

[Juninio]

Thank you very very much everyone. Thanks for the tutorial.

 

I wish every single one of you the best