Game Updates

[psychoticbob]

Is there a way to change the settings for ALL of my games to ONLY update manually? I do not want my games to update unless I manually choose to update them. .

I went through Settings and the only options are for how these games automatically update. There is NO option for manual updating which seems wrong and shortsighted.

I've looked in other Settings and do not see an option to turn off automatic game updates nor to choose only manual updates.

Please let me know. Thank you.

[Crazy Tiger]

You can set your games to update on launch. Has to be done per game, though, no global toggle for that.

If you are looking for an option to not update your games at all, that isn't there. Not shortsighted, btw, it's intentional.

[psychoticbob]

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

You can set your games to update on launch. Has to be done per game, though, no global toggle for that.

Yes but how? The ONLY options available are for automatic updates. There is NO option for manual updates. I do NOT want ANY of my games to update automatically. I want to update each one manually. That is the purpose of this thread - to learn how to change game settings to ONLY update manually (and turn off ALL automatic updates.)

Thank you.

[🌴Opium🌴]

To set up game updates manually for all games on Steam, follow these steps:

Launch the Steam client and log in to your account.
1. In the top menu, select "Steam" and select "Settings".
2. In the Settings window, select Downloads on the left side of the menu.
3. In the "Automatic updates" section, select the "Do not update automatically" option.
4. Select the "Game Launch only" option.
5. Click "OK" to save the changes.

Now your games won't automatically update in the background. Instead, you will be able to update them manually anytime you choose to do so.

[psychoticbob]

Originally posted by 💜BAKENBARDY💜:

To set up game updates manually for all games on Steam, follow these steps:

Launch the Steam client and log in to your account.
1. In the top menu, select "Steam" and select "Settings".
2. In the Settings window, select Downloads on the left side of the menu.
3. In the "Automatic updates" section, select the "Do not update automatically" option.
4. Select the "Game Launch only" option.
5. Click "OK" to save the changes.

Now your games won't automatically update in the background. Instead, you will be able to update them manually anytime you choose to do so.

Thank you for your response. I do not have an "Automatic Updates" section in my "Downloads" tab. The only sections that appear are:

1) Download Region
2) Download Restrictions
a) Only auto-update games between 'time 1' and 'time 2'
b) Allow downloads during gameplay
c) Throttle downloads while streaming (<---This is the only option checked. I don't know why.)
d) Display download rate in bits per second
e) Limit bandwidth to 'X' KB/s
3) Steam Library Folders
4) Clear Download Cache and
5) Game File Transfer over Local Network

Searching all of these options as well as all the other tabs in the Settings Menu I cannot find any option to turn off automatic updates and turn on manual updates. I do not know where else in Steam that I can look.

Thank you.

[Hennix]

Originally posted by 💜BAKENBARDY💜:

To set up game updates manually for all games on Steam, follow these steps:

Launch the Steam client and log in to your account.
1. In the top menu, select "Steam" and select "Settings".
2. In the Settings window, select Downloads on the left side of the menu.
3. In the "Automatic updates" section, select the "Do not update automatically" option.
4. Select the "Game Launch only" option.
5. Click "OK" to save the changes.

Now your games won't automatically update in the background. Instead, you will be able to update them manually anytime you choose to do so.

read this again carefully
there is no manuell update tab

[Crazy Tiger]

Originally posted by psychoticbob:

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

You can set your games to update on launch. Has to be done per game, though, no global toggle for that.

Yes but how? The ONLY options available are for automatic updates. There is NO option for manual updates. I do NOT want ANY of my games to update automatically. I want to update each one manually. That is the purpose of this thread - to learn how to change game settings to ONLY update manually (and turn off ALL automatic updates.)

Thank you.

Rightclick on a game, go to properties, then updates and change the top option to update on game launch.

As my edit of the first post said, if you're looking for an option to not update games at all, you won't find it. The only "official" way is the beta branches, but most game devs don't use those. There are workarounds, though, but you'll have to look for them.
The main branche only has the options to update automatically or on game launch. And as said, that's intentional as that's how Valve wants their platform to be.

[psychoticbob]

Originally posted by Hennix:

Originally posted by 💜BAKENBARDY💜:

...Instead, you will be able to update them manually anytime you choose to do so.

read this again carefully
there is no manuell update tab

This is the problem. I do not want my games to update even when I launch them unless I want to update them. Which, right now, I do not. I want to continue playing my games without them EVER updating unless and until I choose to update them again.

I have searched Steam's Help Section as far as I am willing and it seems that, as you and the other responder to my thread have stated, Steam does not provide an option to play any game without it first being updated before it can be played.

I'm guessing that I need to either somehow find a way to launch these games without Steam or find a way to buy these games all over again without the use of a client or at least one that is as restrictive as Steam.

Thank you for your responses.

[Jerry]

My strategy is to allow updates only between 3 and 4 in the morning. My PC is never running at this time, so it effectively means, I do my updates manually.

[psychoticbob]

Originally posted by Jerry:

My strategy is to allow updates only between 3 and 4 in the morning. My PC is never running at this time, so it effectively means, I do my updates manually.

That's not the problem I'm trying to solve. The problem I am trying to solve is preventing my games from ever updating until such time as I CHOOSE to update them. I want to continue playing my games in an un-updated state which currently is not possible with any of the games in my Steam Library.

So, for those games that I can replace I expect to buy them again from somewhere other than Steam so that I can control when they get updated.

I am still trying to find a method for launching my existing games without the Steam client but so far have had very little success.

It is absolutely unbelievable to me that Steam FORCES game updates EVERY time a customer wants to play a game. I think that Steam should only be a marketplace to buy games not also control how the customer uses the software they purchase via Steam.

[Jerry]

Originally posted by psychoticbob:

The problem I am trying to solve is preventing my games from ever updating until such time as I CHOOSE to update them.

As long as Steam is online, this is intentionally impossible. If you want to play a game, you are forced to use the latest version, unless the publisher provides a beta branch of an older build.

For games, that do not rely on an internet connection, keeping an old version stored and integrating it into a Steam client, that runs in offline mode, can work however.

[Party Pooper]

Nothing is working to be honest

[June]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.