An Advanced option to disable 3rd party installer execution

[Mautauri]

After finding out that one game installs AMD dual core optimizer on my Intel system, this suggestion came up.

How about a tick in the settings that disables all 3rd party installer executions, or even disabling .vdf execution?

An option only for power users, so once checked, steam won't execute .vdf files when a user launches a game and/or software.

If you've looked into the .vdf files (installscript.vdf) it includes all necessary 3rd party programs; ie. VC Redist, DXSETUP, registry keys.

Unless OS explicitly terminates installations (ie. GFWL on windows 8), Steam executes all the 3rd party installer listed in the .vdf file, and when it happens, whenever I launch the very game again, it loads the vdf script again to install the blocked / terminated installer.

Although you can manually edit the .installscript.vdf and erase any unwanted 3rd party installers from the list to bypass installation, but whenever you verify steam game cache, the .vdf returns.

So, I would like to see a tick or an option where I could disable 3rd party installers and do all necessary works myself, not steam doing it for me.

[Mautauri]

Added*

Here is an example of installscript.vdf found in a steamapps folder:


insta"InstallScript"
{
"Run Process"
{
"VCRedistributable"
{
"process 1" "%INSTALLDIR%\\thirdparty\\Studio_Redistributable\\vcredist_x86.exe"
"command 1" "/q"
"description" "Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable 2008 SP1"
"NoCleanUp" "1"
}
"DirectX"
{
"process 1" "%INSTALLDIR%\\thirdparty\\DirectX\\DXSETUP.exe"
"command 1" "/silent"
"description" "Microsoft DirectX"
"NoCleanUp" "1"
}
}
}
"kvsignatures"
{
"InstallScript" "5dc66f304541c6e174f3192f2276a9d38c602075c93e3502b9fbf6127575e8a370c00685e164a0ddce2579dff61ae5612d777fac43567b9f397329ba93f0394edb5e07cc0cc9c2b57198718dca88f3dc00df807b178bfbdd612d1c05f2399bccdec6643d4708b26f4603e1f3351fefd5c4ce452c3e0936b7ab80362a03ad38a9"
}

When steam executes the .vdf file, it records a registry entry; ie. DXSETUP "1" to bypass from thereon. However, steam records each games registry as appid number, its really difficult to find out what and where it is recorded if you have more than 500+ games listed and installed on your system.

[ManiacMal]

Call me lazy but I'd rather just let Steam install, reinstall, repair w/e rather than have a prompt asking me what i want to install.

[Tito Shivan]

Give users the choice of not going through that first time setup and nobody will.
Then, game issue after game issue, support ticket after support ticket. Because people couldn't be bothered with going through it once
In this case, the option creates more problems than it solves.

[aiusepsi]

Putting in a "shoot myself in the foot" option is a bad idea.

Also, insisting on resolving dependencies yourself doesn't make you an advanced user. Advanced users use tools like apt on Debian / Ubuntu or Homebrew on Mac OS to manage dependencies for their software. Steam's performing a similar(ish) function.

[<?White-Tiger?>]

apt-get/aptitude works way better... it doesn't kill stuff unlike Steam.
It happened multiple times that a game setup kind of killed my PC...

Once it was a game which installed an old version of PhysX and since I'm currently using an NVIDIA GPU, I had already the latest version... the old version installed non the less and caused lots of glitches and I couldn't find the cause that easy.. nor did the support of another game. (thought it were an issue related to that game as I didn't play other games that time..)

I've also had a few times the problem that other applications wouldn't work anymore.. because of VC++ runtimes that were downgraded.. To uninstall all runtimes just to reinstall the latest version once more isn't that funny... nor does it guarantee that everything is "clean" again.

And btw... dependencies are just that, dependencies. An application wouldn't even start without them unless they are optional. Thus not installing them normally gives an error on launch that something is missing. It's easy to install it then (at least for experienced users. For a developer like me anyway :P)

I know enough about PC's (and had to reinstall Windows often enough) to know how bad it is to install new stuff, especially when it was installed already or even a newer version.

Anyway, such an option doesn't hurt. Either one knows what he's doin' or not. Hide it somewhere... maybe not inside the developer console because I've searched for that already :P