Separating my games from my son's on same computer

[kbernatz]

I think I have this right, but would appreciate confirmation (and do have two questions).

Originally all games were on my steam account, then my son got his own email and own Steam account. We repurchased one or two games to play multi-player and then he began saving his hard earned money to buy other steam games. These he installed using his own steam account using his own windows account.

However, we never changed the download library location for his steam account, so all his games were installed in the same location as my games. I believe this is the reason why I see all of his games in my Library and can play all of these games (note: we do not have Family sharing activated on my account, and I don't think on his, either). Is this correct (that I see his games due to the same download location on the PC?).

He now has his own laptop and has reinstalled some games there and we were looking at doing Team Fortress 2 co-op, but when I went to install the game on this PC, it wouldn't let me as it is already in "my" Library (though it is /his/ game).

Our questions are:

1) Am I able to run TF2 from my steam account on my PC at the same time as he is running TF2 from /his/ steam account on /his/ laptop without having to reinstall TF2 on my computer and without both of us going into TF2 with the same account? I believe the answer is 'yes', that if I run TF2 from my PC in /my/ steam account, it will open up an instnace of TF2 with MY steam login information (currently none, as I have not played it before) and not prevent him from opening up TF2 on his laptop with his own login information. Correct?

2) Is there any easy way to separate out the downloads on my PC for 'his' games and 'my games', or is there no real need to go through all that trouble? He is now almost exclusively playing steam games on his laptop, so I can't see the need .... but I wonder if we'll get into trouble by both of us trying to play the same game at the same time.

-Kevin B

[Ogami]

Yes game data is shared between different accounts on the same PC.
So you need only one installation of a game and can play it with different accounts.
As long as all accounts own the game.

So yes, you can play the game on pc and use the downloaded files already there and your son can use the ones on his laptop.

Steam will always show ALL installed steam games in the library that are on the same pc, even if they belong to other accounts.
There is usually no reason to seperate them into different libraries. Games you both own will just use the same data when played and games that differ between accounts will have a "Purchase" button instead of "Play" for the account who does not own it. So that account cant use the data.

[Kargor]

Also, last time I checked, the library had a filter like "my games".

Steam data leaks between different windows accounts, unfortunately. Selecting "my games" on your account, then logging off and logging into the other account will have the library set to "kbernatz's games" there.

While this is merely an inconvenience -- everyone has to agree on settings, or change them each time some logs on -- the Steam account credentials leak as well. So, in a setup like this, you can't save your password, as the login data will be used on every Windows account, not just yours.

[kbernatz]

Thanks Ogami, Kargor. Yes, the filter has 'my games' (as well as kbernatz and my son's games), what was confusing us was the fact that TF2 did not generate a 'purchase' option on MY account, though I suspect that is because it is a 'free to play' game.

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by kbernatz:

Thanks Ogami, Kargor. Yes, the filter has 'my games' (as well as kbernatz and my son's games), what was confusing us was the fact that TF2 did not generate a 'purchase' option on MY account, though I suspect that is because it is a 'free to play' game.

That's exactly the point. Afterall, why should you purchase a F2P game instead of just playing it?