Moving steam games to a new computer build

[Jian Hou Zi]

I couldn't find anything specific on this topic, so I thought I'd post my solution here for others' benefit.

I recently rebuilt my computer; all new hardware except for the secondary disks. I also finally bit the bullet and grudgingly installed Windows 10 instead of Windows 7. (Install OpenShell to help make Windows 10 suck less.)

I had installed Steam and my Steam library on a secondary disk which I simply moved from the old machine to the new machine, then reinstalled Steam over itself so that it would be configured correctly for the new operating system. All of my games where still where I had installed them, but Steam did not recognize them as installed. I tried re-installing some games, which mostly consisted of discovering local files, but I didn't get the desired result, namely the necessary third-party drivers were not automatically reinstalled, so when I launched Team Fortress 2, for example, the game wouldn't run. Steam must have cached somewhere that the drivers were already installed, which the reinstallation didn't clear.

It looked like I might have to delete then reinstall all of my Steam library, but I didn't want to re-download half a terabyte. I tried one more thing, and it worked, so here's how you can do it too.

• Suppose you have Steam installed at

  S:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\

  and your library installed at

  S:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\

  Rename your old Steam installation directory, e.g.

  S:\Program Files (x86)\SteamOld\

• Now that nothing exists at

  S:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\

  , you can make a fresh installation to that location.
  
• Move

  S:\Program Files (x86)\SteamOld\steamapps\common\

  to

  S:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\

• You will still have to reinstall each game individually, but instead of re-downloading the entire game, Steam should simply "discover local files" and maybe download a file manifest. The first time you relaunch the game, Steam will also check to see whether the necessary drivers have been installed and automatically download and install them.

You will have to reconfigure most games' video settings, but that's a good thing since it's a new build with different hardware.

You will also need to pay attention to which games don't use the Steam cloud for your game saves and be sure to manually migrate those from your old system. (The PC Gaming Wiki is a great resource for helping you locate these files.)

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

You mean this?

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7418-YUBN-8129

And use this for saves...

https://www.gamesave-manager.com
.

[The Giving One]

Originally posted by Jian Hou Zi:

All of my games where still where I had installed them, but Steam did not recognize them as installed.

If you follow the good Hotsauce's post above, you should be fine, but if you run into this quoted issue here again in the future, see this :

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=8379-RYIP-2998

[Jian Hou Zi]

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7418-YUBN-8129 is for moving a Steam library within the same system. What I needed was for an all-new system: New operating system (fresh installation, not just upgraded) and new hardware (new motherboard, new processor, new graphics card, new primary disk, etc). Steam won't give me the option to verify file caches for any already existing games I haven't yet "reinstalled."

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=8379-RYIP-2998 talks about adding an alternate library location. While my Steam installation is at an alternate location, my library is not at an alternate location relative to the Steam installation. I just tried to add my library location like the article suggested, but couldn't since it was already the default library location.

Neither of those articles addressed the issue of installing missing third-party drivers, e.g. DirectX, except maybe the second article's "completely reinstall the game" (implies deleting old files) which I haven't really had to do because Steam is thankfully discovering existing files without re-downloading them when I hit "install."

[Silicon Vampire]

All you needed to do was copy all the .acf files as well..:

I’ve been doing it this way for years with no issues

I’ve been through several computers and doubt I’ve ever had to download a game again when done correctly