Installed games appearing as uninstalled

[V3ntilator]

Installed games are appearing as uninstalled.

Is there any tool which can do this automatically by checking installed games vs what Steam Interface shows as installed?

There is a few great Steam tools, but i haven't found anything for this.


I know why this issue probably happened. Years ago Steam didn't have a Move option.
I moved manually from HDD to HDD, and i thought Steam scanned the folders for new games, but it doesen't.

[ReBoot]

Tip: Solve the root cause. If you don't have th issue, you don't need to check for it.
For starters, move back, manually, and then move properly. Or keep your games inside the Steam folder, that pretty much solves it.

[V3ntilator]

Thank you, but i forgot where they were originally as it's years ago and Steam were splitted onto 4 different HDD's.

[ReBoot]

Several possibilities:
1. Look yourself. Most likely you weren't dead drunk back then so you've put games in sensible folders. Look in those sensible folders.
2. Tools like GFE (AFAIK theres something similar for AMD) can look for you but they may not find ALL games, only the ones they support.
3. Pretty much every third-party tool that launches games for any reason should help, but limitations from 2 apply.
4. If everything else fails, search for *.exe files. Assuming you haven't tried to fol yourself as much as possible (see 1), that should yield comprehensible results. Most important, that'll yield COMPLETE results.

In future, don't try to fool yourself (that's what yo did by spreading

[V3ntilator]

In the future do not automatically think everyone is a n00b. ;)

I asked for a tool to do a simple task quicker, and you reply mostly nonsense which is not related to what i asked for in the in my first post.

The folder structure in Steam is made for newbies, and you can move anything "blindfolded" without moving to wrong places.
I use Total Commander and not the crap file browser in windows. You have to be blind to move anything to wrong places in that file manager.

You are totally wrong about GFE.
GFE doesen't compare installed vs Steam database at all. Also. GFE only finds about 10% of all installed games here, so it's useless in my case.
Still, i use GFE sometimes with NVIDIA Shield TV and Steam Link for game stream and is why i already have all Steam folders in GFE.

Anyway.

All games were moved to correct locations. /steamapps/common/.

I grew up with OS since Amiga days in 1980's, so it's impossible for me to move Steam games to wrong folders as i also know how windows, steam and whatever inside out. ;)
If i were a programmer, i would make a tool like this myself as i know how to make it.

It's kinda weird that there is no function in Steam to force re-scan folders.
Since games have own ID number/unique folder names etc. in database, Steam could quickly fix this.

I already deleted over 180.GB of games manually today before i made the first post, but it's time consuming to check every single folder out of 600+ vs what's registered as installed, and what's not.
A year ago, i did make folder lists in DOS for each Steam folder. Dir > c.txt, d.txt etc. but the problem is that there is no program to batch compare filename differences.

So far i manually found around 180.GB of games i could remove, or manually refresh in Steam. If the folder name is just nonsense. Just look at the meta files.

To manually refresh, you can just re-install on top of the folder, and Steam will verify it and add it to database.

Thanks for the help anyway, but none of it were relevant to what i asked for. You replied to the title of the post, and not what i wrote in the first post.

[ReBoot]

You gotta admit, spreading a game database across 4 volumes instead of spreading 1 volume across 4 disks and them keeping the games in one easily-manageable volume is quite a noobish thing to do.

[V3ntilator]

Originally posted by ReBoot:

You gotta admit, spreading a game database across 4 volumes instead of spreading 1 volume across 4 disks and them keeping the games in one easily-manageable volume is quite a noobish thing to do.

Yes, if you look at it one sided. There is benefits with using multiple physical HDD's.

It's more noobish to have everything on one HDD. If that HDD breaks, you lose everything.
Since 1995, i stored mail, apps and whatever on a physical different D:\ drive.
If i needed to re-install windows, everything were already on D:\ and everything with correct config.
After fresh Windows install and all config, just use a image writer and backup first HDD.
C:\ 100% messed up? No problem. Takes like 2 mins to overwrite sectors on C:\ and you have a 100% defragged clean Windows, and any program on physicsl D:\ works as normal, because settings were already in C:\ image.

To date i never lost anything, because i used physical HDD's instead of partitions. ;)
Partitions is just stupid vs physical HDD's.

Only a noob'ie would lose control over Steam games spread onto more than one HDD.
There is a reason why Valve added this feature. At some point you will run out of space, and can just install more games to a different drive. People begged Valve to add install to multiple HDD's when games became big at some point.

The path is the same no matter where you install games.
/steamapps/Common.

It's not possible lose control over that when it's the same on any HDD.
And for Steam it doesen't matter as it's all merged to same menu.

When that's said, in recent years i used only ONE big dedicated HDD only for Steam games.
Since i have 520/520 fiber line, it only takes me ~4 mins to dowload each 10.GB chunk of games from Steam as line is always maxed out on Steam.