Migrating Steam Account to a new computer

[ticklenut]

I have no idea.

I am going to be building a new comp. A game only box. I will want to loacate my steam account along with all the games on steam to this box. Is there an easy fix? Do I have to sell my soul to another corporate entity? Will my body decompose in a natural manner? Does focusing on global warming reduce the ozone issue?

Could someone perhaps answer this and then it gets made a sticky for future reference.

[Dalienx]

Its quite easy actualy.. if you have the storage space.
What you need to do is grab the entire steamapps folder (most likely c:/steam/steamapps)
and back that up somewhere like an external drive.
It will most likely be too large to burn to a cd so it needs to be a drive.
You could even get away with just putting it on the new drive, as long as you dont forget about it during the windows install and format it..
Once you get the new machine up and running, simply install steam as you would normaly, then move that steamapps folder back in under steam.
Steam itself will do a few updates when you run it, but when it goes to download the games it will find it already has them all and you will be up and running in no time.

[Jigoku]

While it is possible to simply move the entire Steam folder and then run steam.exe, it can cause issues.

As Dx says, install Steam using http://storefront.steampowered.com/d...eamInstall.msi, run it once, log in, exit, then copy the Steamapps folder over.

Note that any config or savefiles for games will be scattered all over the place depending on the actual game. Typically though, they may be in Documents, Documents\My Game or %appdata%\local\

[King_Rocket]

You can also use the Steam backup feature, I have no idea why so many people over look this.

[Jigoku]

Because it is rubbish ...

[ticklenut]

Thanks guys.

Not too fussed about saved games, can't save online games. If I havent finished a game and I am not playing it currently then it is unlikely I am going back to it. I just don't want to lose the games I have.

Yep my steam apps will be too big for dvd storage. The thing is though, the old box won't be consigned to the dump, it will be the non-gaming box so I can transfer the steam apps folder over the network once I have run the steam exe, yes?

[Jigoku]

Yep.

[ticklenut]

Do the happy dance.

[Dalienx]

yeah no problem.
Just make sure you use copy, not move.
It will take quite a while to copy accross and if you use "move" and something happens (power fail, pc hangs ect) it could screw it.
so copy. then delete original.

[wHiTeRaSTa]

Originally Posted by Jigoku

Because it is rubbish ...

Hehehe...for some reason it will forget to back up your profiles but can be a decent way to archive your games if anything.