"games" folder icons and appids

[SolitaryHawk]

So, what is this folder all about? I've just seen some weird things in it. Among the icons for the games I own there's also: Crysis, Crysis Warhead and Crysis Wars, Lost Planet and Football Manager appids (.exe files) and some Half-Life 2 .dll files. If you haven't already, go see if you have those at C/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steam/games (you probably do). I've seen an old discussion about this, but nobody knew what they were. Basically if you delete any, Steam will update and they will be back again.
Does anybody know anything about this?

[TombRaiser]

Those are the game's thumbnail icons. If you create a shortcut from a game's .exe and put it on your desktop, the icon you are seeing is from this path.

[SolitaryHawk]

Originally posted by TombRaiser:

Those are the game's thumbnail icons. If you create a shortcut from a game's .exe and put it on your desktop, the icon you are seeing is from this path.

OK, that's the icons, but do you have the mentioned .exe and and .dll files? Also, can I delete an icon from a game I refunded (it's no longer installed)?

[Tev]

Originally posted by Cpt_J4m3s:

Originally posted by TombRaiser:

Those are the game's thumbnail icons. If you create a shortcut from a game's .exe and put it on your desktop, the icon you are seeing is from this path.

OK, that's the icons, but do you have the mentioned .exe and and .dll files? Also, can I delete an icon from a game I refunded (it's no longer installed)?

Most of the files there are .ico which are as mentioned above the thumbnails for the .url shortcuts.

But I do see some executables, i.e. appid_17300.exe which seems to open up Crysis being its APP-ID and all.

I do also see Half-Life 2 GDF.dll and Half-Life 2 Lost Coast GDF.dll and 3 html files related to Source SDK, Dedicated Server and Left 4 Dead 2's Authoring Tools.

As for why they're there, *shrugs* The executable does exactly what the shortcut would: initiate the installation (play if installed), or if you don't own the game and have gotten it i.e. via Steam Family Sharing (not sure if they'd display otherwise), then it will toss you to the game's Steam Store -page.

I guess another way to look at this would be "What do those games have that others don't?"

[SolitaryHawk]

Originally posted by Teutep:

Originally posted by Cpt_J4m3s:

OK, that's the icons, but do you have the mentioned .exe and and .dll files? Also, can I delete an icon from a game I refunded (it's no longer installed)?

Most of the files there are .ico which are as mentioned above the thumbnails for the .url shortcuts.

But I do see some executables, i.e. appid_17300.exe which seems to open up Crysis being its APP-ID and all.

I do also see Half-Life 2 GDF.dll and Half-Life 2 Lost Coast GDF.dll and 3 html files related to Source SDK, Dedicated Server and Left 4 Dead 2's Authoring Tools.

As for why they're there, *shrugs* The executable does exactly what the shortcut would: initiate the installation (play if installed), or if you don't own the game and have gotten it i.e. via Steam Family Sharing (not sure if they'd display otherwise), then it will toss you to the game's Steam Store -page.

I guess another way to look at this would be "What do those games have that others don't?"

So is it OK if I deleted an icon of a no longer owned game?

About the other files, the thing is I own none of the mentioned titles and I never did, even by sharing and that's what confused me. Their "date created" is the date I first installed Steam and I owned no games back then.

[Tev]

Just tried moving my games folder to desktop and booting Steam only to get a Fatal Error. (Go figure since I had -noverifyfiles as launch arg.)

After I removed the launch argument and booted Steam up, it fetched back these

• Smite's .ico -file
  
• appid_6510.exe
  
• appid_6520.exe
  
• appid_10540.exe
  
• appid_10560.exe
  
• appid_17300.exe
  
• appid_17330.exe
  
• Half-Life 2 GDF.dll
  
• Half-Life 2 Lost Coast GDF.dll
  
• PlatformMenu.vdf
  
• SteamMovie.ico

So to sum it up, no point in removing them. They'll be re-acquired anyway. I don't own Lost Planet, yet I have its executable.

I could probably replace them with a file and file extension titled the same while using
-noverifyfiles to see how it would affect the game in question (similarly to how I use custom sounds), but at the same time, don't know if it's really such a big deal.

[SolitaryHawk]

Originally posted by Teutep:

Just tried moving my games folder to desktop and booting Steam only to get a Fatal Error. (Go figure since I had -noverifyfiles as launch arg.)

After I removed the launch argument and booted Steam up, it fetched back these

• Smite's .ico -file
  
• appid_6510.exe
  
• appid_6520.exe
  
• appid_10540.exe
  
• appid_10560.exe
  
• appid_17300.exe
  
• appid_17330.exe
  
• Half-Life 2 GDF.dll
  
• Half-Life 2 Lost Coast GDF.dll
  
• PlatformMenu.vdf
  
• SteamMovie.ico

So to sum it up, no point in removing them. They'll be re-acquired anyway. I don't own Lost Planet, yet I have its executable.

I could probably replace them with a file and file extension titled the same while using
-noverifyfiles to see how it would affect the game in question (similarly to how I use custom sounds), but at the same time, don't know if it's really such a big deal.

Thanks for the experiment, yes those are the files I have as well. I guess I'll just leave them that way.
About the icons, are they downloaded in that folder when I download the corresponding game? If I just download Steam on another PC they will not be downloaded until I install the games, right?

[Tev]

I don't have but Lost Planet 3 installed, yet I get the executable for Lost Planet 1.

Same goes for the Crysis games, so I'd say it doesn't matter.

[Bielor]

I have the same

[SolitaryHawk]

Originally posted by Teutep:

I don't have but Lost Planet 3 installed, yet I get the executable for Lost Planet 1.

Same goes for the Crysis games, so I'd say it doesn't matter.

OK, I asked about icon (.ico file) of a game I refunded. Is it alright to delete those? I guess it is because they wouldn't download on a new computer if I downloaded Steam again.

[Tev]

You can delete the .ico file if you want, no harm in not deleting it though.

[SolitaryHawk]

Originally posted by Teutep:

You can delete the .ico file if you want, no harm in not deleting it though.

Alright, thanks!

[lajF]

I just got a Minecraft premium card code for free! :D http://freeminecraftgiftcode.net

[Karen's Last Ziti]

I have these too. I have no idea were they come from. The dates on them are in 2010 (platformmenu.vdf), 2008 (football manager 2009, soccer manager 2009, crysis wars, crysis warhead, crysis) and 2007 (the hl2 dll files) but i only got this computer this year (2016). You can find what the appid games are by going to https://steamdb.info/app/[app id here]/ so i know what games they are supposed to be but I am worried about running them as I do not know where they come from and the appid file name structure does not match any of my other games. I'd really appreciate it if someone could could explain this. Thanks

[Karen's Last Ziti]

btw i don't have smite's .ico