So I found this interesting named file....

[StealthMode]

In the root Steam folder called Steam2.dll.
Curious if the beta client is preloading the next platforms dynamic linked library files?

[Sovietball]

How the hell do we know?

[StealthMode]

Lmao, because not everyone is you. Nice troll reply though.

It looks like the file creation date was march of last year. When the last major update/overhaul occured. Dunno if it was named that for the next gen platform, or if they just got lazy and didnt make the OG .dll rename to .old in the update script.

Kind've hoping someone in the know happens upon this thread.

[HLCinSC]

I saw this thread https://steamcommunity.com/app/4000/discussions/1/537405286643164495/ so it's been around at least since 2015

[Start_Running]

Might surprise you to know OP that file nomenclature, is really just whatever the devlopers think up at the time.

It's likely just a seperate set of libraries they wanted to keep distinct from the other dll. Trust, me , having super large dlls , really just makes debugging harder.

[StealthMode]

Aye, I typod the crap out of that date. Its 02/13/2014 creation date.

Weird cause I still see a Steam.dll which is getting updated as recently as today. But that Steam2.dll hasn't been touched since 2014. Like they said oh well, they wont notice. LoL.

And yeah SR, I understand that.

[aiusepsi]

It's actually old, not new. The version of the underlying Steam system in the client we're using today is version 3. The old system was version 2. The code for version 3 is in steamclient.dll, and for version 2 was in steam.dll.

For a long time, the client actually ran version 2 and version 3 simultaneously; the last system that they switched over from Steam2 to Steam3 was downloading; if you remember the kerfuffle about SteamPipe a few years back, that's what that was. For most games the switch was pretty much transparent, but some games integrated more tightly with the old Steam2 system.

So what they did was write a sort of compatibility shim which translated calls to the old Steam2 APIs into something that the new Steam3 system could handle. That's what the new Steam.dll is. Steam2.dll is the original Steam.dll which is being kept around for... some reason? No idea. Anyway, that's why the modification date on it is so old.

[StealthMode]

Ty for the explanation auisepsi. That makes perfect sense. And aye, remember the steampipe thing. Been a minute since I have even thought about that.