Lost my saved game?

[Workshed]

Isn't Windows Live or something supposed to keep your progress on the cloud?

I got a new PC, reinstalled GTA4 and now im back at the start :\

[Blaagh]

No Windows Live has no "cloud" feature. Savegames are stored locally and wont even work on another profile. You'd have to migrate/copy your whole live-installation to the new computer (with the same username) plus the savegames.

[Pauli P]

I was wondering the same thing. This "Windows Live" is/was a total joke. Very buggy, slow, incompatible and not even cloud saving. I'm also pointing at you Rockstar. Main menu *should have* load/save option clearly visible. Not that "continue game" bs. Save game files should be clearly available in the file system if cloud saving is not available. I have backup of my previous HDD and hopefully I can restore my 66 hours of gameplay. If not, F-U Microsoft and Rockstar.

[Yujah]

At Pauli: restoring savegames is possible.

I should specify to use Windows 7 and the retail DVD version the game, but for me they are in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Rockstar Games\GTA IV\savegames\user_PID in which PID is a hexadecimal numerical GFWL profile ID. If you have just one GFWL account you have only one user_PID directory there, or that one and a "user_invalid" one from when you first started the game. Although I expect I may have only ever actually used the more involved option as per below, it likely already works to copy the savegames in that directory, the SGTA4xx files, from the old HDD to the new one. %LOCALAPPDATA% is normally C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local; on the new system you can use the %LOCALAPPDATA% notation directly in the explorer, on the old HDD you'll have to navigate there explicitly.

I myself use one online GFWL account and multiple offline accounts for a few local users, and in that situation things get a bit more involved, what with wanting to copy over the actual GFWL profiles themselves. Those are in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\XLive\Content but since I can't for now definitely remember if copying over that directory (and then all user_PID directories as per above) was all it took I shall for now assume you have only one, regular online GFWL account set up, and hope this helps.

[EDIT] First respondent in fact seems to explicitly deny the first option above to work. Certainly for offline, local GFWL accounts the PIDs won't match: copy only the actual SGTA4xx files from your old profile to your new one. But if indeed that definitively doesn't work, note that its likely for the second option best to first delete all new GFWL profiles (start GTA4, choose LIVE, "Delete profile") and then make sure GFWL is fully shutdown before copying over the old profile directories to the XLive\Content folder. I'd reboot after deleting the new profiles; not sure how resident GFWL is...

In any case, yes, it's definitely possible to restore old savegames; have done so a few times. I'll go and verify if things don't already work out for you with the above. In that case please specify your number and type (regular or local) of GFWL profiles and whether or not you need to be concerned with other GFWL games as well.

[Pauli P]

@Yujah Thanks, I found the save games from my old hdd from the hidden users subfolder. Luckily I got the progress restored and luckily I backed up everything from my old spinning disk and not just the "games" etc folders. In the Windows Live service there was a mention about GTAIV but there seemed to be 0 achievements and progress whereas I had plenty of other old games there with some achiemements in them. Perhaps now, when I have some holidays, I can finish the game.

[wickeddubdi33]

So sad.

[Pauli P]

Originally posted by dubdi:

So sad.

Go troll elsewhere loser.