Windows 10 - Multiple Windows/Steam Accounts - Download on Inactive while Playing on Active

[Tricorius]

Greetings,

Sorry if this is a duplicate. I tried searching and had a rough time finding the exact question I have.

My son and I recently built a new gaming PC. It runs Windows 10.

I have two Windows accounts (one for each of us) and two Steam accounts (again, one for each of us) configured. Each Windows account auto logs in with the respective Steam account.

So far, so good.

However, he bought a fairly large game recently and we have relatively low download speeds (the download estimate for the game is multiple days).

This is fine. He, of course, is impatient and I don’t blame him but it is what it is.

What frustrates me is that if he has left Steam up on his Windows account downloading the game, and I launch Steam, it seems to shut Steam down on his account before launching on mine.

This, of course, stops the download. I have tried switching the preferences to “allow download while playing” and it doesn’t seem to matter.

I understand copyright and such, but we aren’t trying to do anything illegal here. I have spent plenty of money on Steam and will continue to do so; but is there any combination of configuration settings that can keep his copy of Steam downloading his game while I play one of mine so that he doesn’t have to log back into Windows and fire up Steam again whenever I want to kill a few zombies? ;)

Thanks!

[Komrade]

So what's happening is you both have one PC, son's game is downloading on his account, you log out and log in to your own account to play a game and it stops his download?

[Komrade]

Pretty sure it's not possible to do both at the same time, maybe you could play a game on his account while it's downloading, or go to a local starbucks or coworking place for faster wifi.

[Silicon Vampire]

If you share the account, I believe the download will continue

[Tricorius]

Yeah. Sorry I may not have explained well.

We share a single PC but have separate Windows and Steam Accounts.

Steam seems to be very aggressive at only being loaded once at a time.

I could probably work around it by setting it up to download on my account. But then we have the same problem in reverse if he wants to play a game. I do see it as “queued” when I’m logged into my Windows/Steam account.

Also if it matters my account is set as a master account for family sharing. All of that works fine, it just seems to quit Steam everywhere but where it was last launched.

Unfortunately it is a desktop tower, so taking it to Starbucks or a work co-lo would be awkward. But it did cross my mind. ;)

[Tricorius]

“ So what's happening is you both have one PC, son's game is downloading on his account, you log out and log in to your own account to play a game and it stops his download?”

To further clarify, yes. He leaves Steam up and running and I “switch” Windows accounts to mine. I find that Steam has exited on my Windows profile. I launch it, it goes through the “connecting to account: [mine]” rigamarole. I play a game and leave Steam running (minimized to system tray, as always) and he switches to his Windows account.

He finds it has don that same thing. Apparently when I launched, it quit on his. If he then launches, it will do the startup thing, connect to his account, and apparently exit on my awindows profile.

For if he leaves it up and I switch back to mine, my Steam has exited again. Now I assume it is downloading in the background, so if I didn’t re-launch Steam it would stay loaded on his account (testing that overnight tonight).

But it is really annoying. And seems unnecessary; I should be able to have Steam open on two Windows user profiles at the same time under two separate Steam accounts. I have plenty of memory available. (I assume it is to prevent complexities, but browsers and most other applications can handle this cleanly.)

[Komrade]

I don't think it's possible. This Steam Support article says you may access different accounts on one PC but only one may be used at the same time.

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=8963-EIKC-3767

[Tricorius]

Ah, yes. So it does. Hadn’t found that FAQ. I appreciate the link. I will have to find an alternative way to download more quickly. Perhaps on a laptop and transfer the game folder over. I have been able to do that with some games in the past.

Thanks again for the help! I still think they should remove this limitation, though. It isn’t like you can run two Windows accounts simultaneously on a single PC.

[Komrade]

Originally posted by Tricorius:

Ah, yes. So it does. Hadn’t found that FAQ. I appreciate the link. I will have to find an alternative way to download more quickly. Perhaps on a laptop and transfer the game folder over. I have been able to do that with some games in the past.

Thanks again for the help! I still think they should remove this limitation, though. It isn’t like you can run two Windows accounts simultaneously on a single PC.

No problem, good luck.