Copying gamefiles to different account to skip re-downloading

[die_Membranen]

Hi,


so after extensive search I know this has been an issue in numerous topics, however non-applicable or non-working in our specific case:

I've bought two copies of CoD IW (a game of ~100GB), one for my gf and one for myself, so no Steam family sharing involved here. We have a very poor internet connection and it took me more than 12 hours for the game to download.

Of couse I tried to take advantage of our much faster LAN to skip most of the duration a second download would take, by launching the download on her machine, cancelling it, ending steam, and copying my own game folder to her steamapps/common directory. This procedure i knew from numerous guides.

So I was hoping steam would recognize the files are already there and skip downloading them once more, to no luck. It just started the whole download again. Also, "verify game files" wouldn't work, it takes a second or so to verify them 100%, but still tries downloading all of it in the background. I also edited the .acf-file on her machine to "StateFlags" "4", without the desired effect. The next time we fired up steam, it would show 4 minutes download time instead of 12 hours, but then switched back to 12 hours after those 4 minutes.

Of course I could just wait for it to download a second time, but I realize with our slow connection this might be a reoccuring problem with other games over time. So any help in that regard would be very appreciated, thanks in advance.




tl;dr is there a bulletproof way to copy files for the same game to different machines and accounts in order to skip huge downloads?

[Ogami]

Yes. You NEED to not only copy over the game folder but the appmanifest file for the game.
Those files are in your steamapps folder and look like this:

"appmanifest_219990.acf" as an example.

The number is different depending on the game. That file tells Steam that a game is installed.
So, copy over the games data folder AND copy over the correct appmanifest file for the game ( just google the number for your game) to the steamapps folder.

Then restart Steam and the game should appear as installed on the new computer.

[wuddih]

you already did the correct method, you probably just forgot to close Steam while copying the files.

[*Skull*HD]

I just go to file common copy file to USB or whatever u have

and open new PCs common file and paste

restart steam and press download game if it stays like it isnt installed

then download will start and it will find files and update it with ur info in like 20s and u are good to go

[Dura_Ace]

Steam then Backup and Restore games will work as well. JUst back up the game to a file that you can move whereever you want. I do this and store all the games on an external hard disk so i dont have to re-download the games again. Much quicker

[die_Membranen]

Copying the initial .acf file instead of just editing the local one did the trick, many thanks!

I also read about the steam backup function but I assumed this wouldn't be feasible across different accounts. I'll definately try this one out in the future, though, seems a more clean solution if it works.