How to get back the Old Family Sharing.

[not.skelly]

Im sure everyone is mad about the new Family Sharing, since with the new one if you have a friend from another country, then you will not be able to share you games with them anymore. So heres a step by step tutorial on how to downgrade your Steam client which reverts the Family Sharing back to its old version.

1. You will need to close Steam

2. Go to where the Steam.exe is located, the default location is "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam"
Create a shortcut for steam.exe and go to its properties

3. At target, press space at the end, and paste this text in:

-forcesteamupdate -forcepackagedownload -overridepackageurl http://web.archive.org/web/20240414011627if_/media.steampowered.com/client -exitsteam

The full text should look like this:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steam.exe" -forcesteamupdate -forcepackagedownload -overridepackageurl http://web.archive.org/web/20240414011627if_/media.steampowered.com/client -exitsteam

5. Click Apply and run the shortcut. Its gonna open the update menu, just wait for it to finish and it should close automatically.

6. Before you launch Steam normally, you will need to prevent it from updating, which you can do by creating a "Steam.cfg" file and the same place steam.exe is located at and paste the following text into the cfg file:

BootStrapperInhibitAll=enable

7. Save the cfg file and launch steam.exe (not the shortcut), once its loads in you should have the old Family Sharing option.


Keep in mind that this wont last forever, because at early 2025 Steam will get rid of the old Family Sharing completely.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Originally posted by not.skelly:

How to get back the Old Family Sharing.

Im sure everyone is mad about the new Family Sharing, since with the new one if you have a friend from another country, then you will not be able to share you games with them anymore. So heres a step by step tutorial on how to downgrade your Steam client which reverts the Family Sharing back to its old version.

1. You will need to close Steam

2. Go to where the Steam.exe is located, the default location is "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam"
Create a shortcut for steam.exe and go to its properties

3. At target, press space at the end, and paste this text in:

-forcesteamupdate -forcepackagedownload -overridepackageurl http://web.archive.org/web/20240414011627if_/media.steampowered.com/client -exitsteam

The full text should look like this:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steam.exe" -forcesteamupdate -forcepackagedownload -overridepackageurl http://web.archive.org/web/20240414011627if_/media.steampowered.com/client -exitsteam

5. Click Apply and run the shortcut. Its gonna open the update menu, just wait for it to finish and it should close automatically.

6. Before you launch Steam normally, you will need to prevent it from updating, which you can do by creating a "Steam.cfg" file and the same place steam.exe is located at and paste the following text into the cfg file:

BootStrapperInhibitAll=enable

7. Save the cfg file and launch steam.exe (not the shortcut), once its loads in you should have the old Family Sharing option.


Keep in mind that this wont last forever, because at early 2025 Steam will get rid of the old Family Sharing completely.

Valve will cut it off in a couple weeks.

If they see this here, they may patch it earlier.

[Fierman]

And you are the only one who is mad about the family sharing. Legit users who have an actual family are very happy with the way things work now. My kids can play on their Steam Deck from my library without locking eachother out.

[Infected Mushroom]

Originally posted by Fierman:

And you are the only one who is mad about the family sharing. Legit users who have an actual family are very happy with the way things work now. My kids can play on their Steam Deck from my library without locking eachother out.

Exactly

[Leonardo Da Pinchi]

Originally posted by C²C^Guyver |NZB|:

Originally posted by not.skelly:

First of all, it doesnt forward you login to an unknown party, it just downloads the old steam client. Second, many people used this feature to share their games with their close friends, people from another country, and this new update prevents this from happening since you can only invite people into your family from the same country.

The client would get updated anyway......

Also telling others how to circumvent the client is NOT a good idea.

Eh, all they need to do is remove connectivity for the old client. But yeah...Steam changed the system for a reason, intentionally bypassing this and advertising how...may not be in OP's best interest.

[C²C^Guyver |NZB|]

Originally posted by not.skelly:

Keep in mind that this wont last forever, because at early 2025 Steam will get rid of the old Family Sharing completely.

Which makes this completely irrelevant.

[BJWyler]

Originally posted by not.skelly:

Originally posted by Fierman:

The file at archive.org is tainted, it will forward your login to an unknown third party.

First of all, it doesnt forward you login to an unknown party, it just downloads the old steam client. Second, many people used this feature to share their games with their close friends, people from another country, and this new update prevents this from happening since you can only invite people into your family from the same country.

FAMILY sharing has always been the key word. And hence one of the reasons the feature was updated. People who continue to abuse the system will most likely find themselves on the wrong end of an account lock once Valve reads the report.

Not to mention that this is a voluntary feature that Valve offers. They can remove it completely if people continue to abuse it.

[MonkehMaster]

you can find lots of info about working with old steam clients in this guide, along with loads of info on commands and plenty of people to help ya.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2967855237

[Eagle_of_Fire]

Originally posted by not.skelly:

since with the new one if you have a friend from another country, then you will not be able to share you games with them anymore.

That was never meant to be used in this way and that's both illegal and against the rules.

[Bllasae]

Originally posted by not.skelly:

Originally posted by Fierman:

The file at archive.org is tainted, it will forward your login to an unknown third party.

First of all, it doesnt forward you login to an unknown party, it just downloads the old steam client. Second, many people used this feature to share their games with their close friends, people from another country, and this new update prevents this from happening since you can only invite people into your family from the same country.

Can you define "family".

[Eagle_of_Fire]

Originally posted by Bllasae:

Originally posted by not.skelly:

First of all, it doesnt forward you login to an unknown party, it just downloads the old steam client. Second, many people used this feature to share their games with their close friends, people from another country, and this new update prevents this from happening since you can only invite people into your family from the same country.

Can you define "family".

You don't have to. Steam ToS do it for you and they are very clear about it. Right now you can share with your very close region and this is defined by IP. In practical terms for the average user, this mean the same house or apartment using the same router.

[C²C^Guyver |NZB|]

You guys that are for this can skirt the issue if you want but the fact remains, that this was never intended to be used with anyone but family members.

You know why they changed it? Because people abused it. You'll find that Valve was lenient with a lot of things, until it was abused.

If you'd like I can link you to a dozen or so threads where someone had their account banned due to cheating because they shared their library with some random person on the internet.

[On Vacation]

"Friends and family" was specifically used by Valve in the announcements and press release's when family share was initially announced. People sure do like to speculate and make things up on why Valve does things.

[Ontrix_Kitsune]

You can't go backwards with Steam. You can't use old versions of the steam client or any older features. Once Steam is updated and changed you have to use whatever it changed to, to continue using Steam.

[MonkehMaster]

Originally posted by Ontrix_Kitsune:

wrong, you can use older versions and you can even stop it from updating, they also work untill steam changes something backend wise.

also, fyi... win 7 steam clients are not receiving updates and are staying on cef 109 (last update for said OS), assuming they arent already using an older specific client version.

that said, im sure plenty of win 7 users by now, have also tried running the latest client version, to see what all works and "doesnt" work.

btw..

Originally posted by MonkehMaster:

you can find lots of info about working with old steam clients in this guide, along with loads of info on commands and plenty of people to help ya.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2967855237

[Ontrix_Kitsune]

Originally posted by MonkehMaster:

wrong, you can use older versions and you can even stop it from updating, they also work untill steam changes something backend wise.

Oh hey it's MonkehMaster! Hi! I wondered when you would show up. You're FAMOUS around the steam forums and well known for repeatedly making up completely false information on purpose. Like that time you wrote in a thread that you actually thought there were new Windows 7 updates being released in 2024. That one was hilarious and I laughed for quite a while at reading that! Thanks for showing up here. I've had a bad day and I needed a good laugh.

For others finding this thread: Nope. Can't use old versions of steam forever. There's no reason in trying. What they said above is completely made up and not true. They do this all the time.

They are also going to reply to me and try to argue with me because they are well known for that too.