How to preserve screenshots during a reformat

[Ishvii]

Hi all,

I reformat my PC about once a year, and while I know how to keep all my Steam games during a reinstall (I have all my games on a separate hard drive), I think when I've reformatted in the past I've lost all my screenshots from the screenshot manager.

I can obviously backup and keep the screenshots folder itself, but is there a way to preserve my game screenshots INSIDE Steam when I reformat, so that when I've finished I can still access all my old screenshots using the Steam screenshot browser instead of just using Windows?

Cheers.

[Tev]

Backup the *\Steam\userdata\<user-ID>\760\ -folder.

[Ishvii]

And that will make the old screenshots appear in the new install's screenshot browser as they were before?

[Tev]

Originally posted by Ishvii:

And that will make the old screenshots appear in the new install's screenshot browser as they were before?

Given the remotecache.vdf & screenshots.vdf work as they should and the content is where it's at, it should.

[Ishvii]

Great, thanks. I'll update this thread with my findings for other's reference.

[Tev]

This thread had a similar situation in the past anyhow: http://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/618457398956345022

[Ishvii]

It worked! Thanks a lot :)

Copy the 760 folder from the old Steam to the new one and the screenshot browser works as it did before with all the old screenshots.

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by Ishvii:

I reformat my PC about once a year

The better question is why you do that. A Windows PC can run just fine for years without reformatting, we're not on Windows 98 afterall.

[corona extra]

W'z man :D

[Ishvii]

Originally posted by ReBoot:

Originally posted by Ishvii:

I reformat my PC about once a year

The better question is why you do that. A Windows PC can run just fine for years without reformatting, we're not on Windows 98 afterall.

Wrong - reformatting it once a year keeps it running as if it were new, and clears out all the junk that builds up over time.

Originally posted by Nightenhelser:

Upload them to Steam Cloud

That doesn't preserve them locally in the screenshot browser, it only puts them online. Not the same thing.

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by Ishvii:

Wrong - reformatting it once a year keeps it running as if it were new, and clears out all the junk that builds up over time.

A better way than clearing out junk is not to collect junk. Like I said, you can totally keep a PC running for years without reformatting-

[eluwina]

tak

[TenK]

"Backup the *\Steam\userdata\<user-ID>\760\ -folder."
This will just backup the screenshots of AppID 760, which is Counterstrike Global Offensive, in this case it was what the author intended, but if you wanna backup ALL ur screenshots, copy the other folders too.

[Ishvii]

Originally posted by Tenchuu:

"Backup the *\Steam\userdata\<user-ID>\760\ -folder."
This will just backup the screenshots of AppID 760, which is Counterstrike Global Offensive, in this case it was what the author intended, but if you wanna backup ALL ur screenshots, copy the other folders too.

760 is the screenshot folder for _all_ games. Inside the 760 folder, there are a bunch of other folders with individual game screenshots inside them

[MILF HUNTER]

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