Hiding separate accounts games on a single machine

[Noesis]

I have two different accounts on my PC and when I run Steam the games from my personal account are showing up on my family's. I'd like to hide them for a privacy reason. This steam feature is really annoying for extremely introverted people. Is there any way not to let Steam detect my personal account's installed games?

[Forcen]

You could install them to a second hard drive that you unplug after exiting steam.
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7710-TDLC-0426&l=
You could test this real quick with a USB stick and a tiny game, you can move games without reinstalling them also.
Keep in mind that steam might get real confused where the games are if you unplug it at any time while steam is running, it might even be confused if you start steam without it plugged in.
Worth testing stuff like this.

I think this will hide the games in the steam application for you and everyone else using that install.
The games might still show up in the list of installed applications in windows but that can thing can be edited manually.

Keep in mind that there are lots of other ways for people to see what games has run previously, for example saved games and other stuff.
Also anyone could look at the files in Steam and find out what profiles has logged in to it and visit their profile pages.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Partitions and OS user accounts.

[Noesis]

Originally posted by Forcen:

You could install them to a second hard drive that you unplug after exiting steam.
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7710-TDLC-0426&l=
You could test this real quick with a USB stick and a tiny game, you can move games without reinstalling them also.
Keep in mind that steam might get real confused where the games are if you unplug it at any time while steam is running, it might even be confused if you start steam without it plugged in.
Worth testing stuff like this.

I think this will hide the games in the steam application for you and everyone else using that install.
The games might still show up in the list of installed applications in windows but that can thing can be edited manually.

Keep in mind that there are lots of other ways for people to see what games has run previously, for example saved games and other stuff.
Also anyone could look at the files in Steam and find out what profiles has logged in to it and visit their profile pages.

They wouldn't go as a far as to look into saves, I've been trying to revoke access to the app manifest files to the other users but the games didn't work for me either. I don't own a USB big enough to store my games either.

[Forcen]

You could make a virtual hard drive that you mount and unmount? https://technet.microsoft.com/de-de/library/gg318052(v=ws.10).aspx
https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/5291/how-to-create-a-virtual-hard-drive-in-windows-7/
It's kind of like mounting an iso file but it's an hard drive that is actually a file on your real drive.

Again, don't unmount it with steam running.

Dual booting two windows installations on the same PC would work best maybe, might be harder to hide and explain though.

[Noesis]

I found a rapid solution revolving around permissions, no secondary hard drives or USBs. The first step would be to let the games download in one folder along with their appmanifest files (the ones that allow Steam to detect the game).
Once your game has finished downloading, just move it to a folder and revoke the permission for the other users (properties, security, advanced, delete all the groups, add your account by typing in your microsoft email, give it every permission. Add the other accounts the same way, revoke their permissions).
It's a tricky way but it seems to work like a charm. You shouldn't forget about downloading the games to a "ghost folder" and then move them to your personal steam library folder otherwise Steam will display an error saying that it's missing the required permissions, also I guess that you should move them back to the ghost folder if you want to update the games. It goes without saying that your account must have admin privileges.

[Noesis]

After testing this in vain I realized you can't add another folder on the same drive ANYMORE for some reason. What's wrong with Steam? Why does it have to be so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ flawed? I'm pissed off over this dumb issue. I used to store games on different folders but it appears now they removed the feature for whatever dumb reason they had. I don't think there's a solution to this anyway. I'm not opting for removable storages since they could break Steam. I'm just extremely pissed off that Steam is constantly ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ up wherever they shouldn't.

[Forcen]

Make a virtual hard drive like I said before. It can be dynamically expanding, just test how it works first.

I bet Steam can't think of a common situation where user might need to install games in different folders on the same drive and removing it solved lots of possible problems.

[Noesis]

Originally posted by Forcen:

Make a virtual hard drive like I said before. It can be dynamically expanding, just test how it works first.

I bet Steam can't think of a common situation where user might need to install games in different folders on the same drive and removing it solved lots of possible problems.

I guess I'll try that. I used to have different folders, but Steam decided to remove the feature somehow.

[Noesis]

I still can't hide completely my activities. I went on trying to hide the virtual hard drive to no luck. Bump

[Forcen]

Explain?

What did you do?
What result did you expect?
What happened instead?

[Noesis]

Originally posted by Forcen:

Explain?

What did you do?
What result did you expect?
What happened instead?

Never mind. I had to reboot my PC to hide the drive thanks to regedit magic. I'm going to try installing something on the hidden drive and see if it's alright.

[Forcen]

Don't forget to exit steam before unmounting it.
Also that drive might still show up in the install locations while others play try to install games, haven't done this so check this.

[Noesis]

Originally posted by Forcen:

Don't forget to exit steam before unmounting it.
Also that drive might still show up in the install locations while others play try to install games, haven't done this so check this.

Unfortunately the drive just disappears and Steam can't detect it.
I'm out of ideas. It's just a pain in the ass to get such a simple task done.

[Forcen]

What do you mean it disappears, isn't that what you wanted? Steam to hide the games in it?

The simple way to do this is to get your own personal computer.

[Noesis]

Originally posted by Forcen:

What do you mean it disappears, isn't that what you wanted? Steam to hide the games in it?

The simple way to do this is to get your on personal computer.

I can't play games from it, because Steam can't detect the drive, and it would be annoying to open the drive manager all the time. If only Steam had such a small feature back I wouldn't be wasting my time over this.