Reformatting your PC

[Brit]

Hey guys not sure if you are aware or if in fact it has been posted before.

But after searching around the place i wanted to know if it was possible to move your STEAm directory without having to use the backup facility within STEAM to save redownloading or installing games. Well it is possible.

I have tried this different ways and all work. With W7 now installing in like 15 minutes it is possible to up and running with all your STEAM games as well within 30 minutes including the W7 install.

Probably old news but I thought I would post it anyway.

1. Have your steam directory on a seperate drive to your OS.
2. Reformat Windows as and when required.
3. After reformat go to the STEAM directory and delete your ClientRegistry.blob file.
4. Send the STEAM.exe to your desktop
5. run the EXE and STEAM will update itself accordingly and add your games to the windows registry.
6. Your good to go.

If you already have your STEAM directory on the same drive as your OS this also works if you can move it somewhere else, as long as you delete the file mentioned and run STEAM from its new directory it will update itself and windows accordingly. This also worked for me with my 2 lads sharing one machine under different profiles and having their own STEAM account available when logged into their profile.

I found this usefull as my STEAM folder is 122GB and my lads is 187GB.

In 30 minutes you can have a clean install of W7 your steam account etc only leaving COD4 and COD5 for me to install as well as anit virus etc

Hope this is useful to someone.

[Brit]

a note worth mentioning is this works whilst moving your STEAM folder to a completely different PC

if there are any points mentioned you are unsure about catch me on TS3.

[PhatFreD]

It is probably easier to just backup your steamapps folder. The just re-install Steam on your new OS and copy the backed up steamapps folder to the Steam folder.

[Thermal Ions]

Fred's method is preferred (and I believe that recommended by Steam Support). You do risk more problems by not re-installing steam properly on the new OS as registry settings etc may not be properly restored otherwise.

[Chief]

Makes no difference really. As I've always had Steam on a non OS drive, I've done what Brit suggested at least half a dozen times, minus the "delete ClientRegistry.blob". As soon as you run steam it checks the registry and all that, sees that it's not installed properly and automatically re-installs itself without messing up any games and whatnot.

Steam is pretty much designed for idiots like me

[Brit]

yea i was sure some of you knew about it.... i didnt and found out through looking around and thought I would share my findings

[Mecha-Wombat]

Originally Posted by PhatFreD

It is probably easier to just backup your steamapps folder. The just re-install Steam on your new OS and copy the backed up steamapps folder to the Steam folder.

So easy to do it this way even I could do it