Can I copy my Steamapps?

[Macky]

Reformatting back to Vista tonight as W7 is having too many problems with games for me. Can I just copy and paste my Steamapps folder onto my External HDD and then copy them back when I install steam again?

Thanks.

 

[reflux]

Yes.

 

[Hutchy]

Yup, just copy the folder back into the correct place and install steam from the download off the website.

 

[Macky]

Great. Thanks. Will they not need reinstalling properly?

 

[AbsenceJam]

Great. Thanks. Will they not need reinstalling properly?

No, you just copy then open Steam and it'll pick them up and maybe download a little bit of data.

 

[marc2003]

you don't even need to install the steam client. you can just dump the steam folder wherever you want and run steam.exe from inside the folder and it will set it self up. you just need to right click and "run as administrator" the first time you do this on a clean install. i recommend creating another partition for your steam folder to sit on permanently then you'll never need to copy files back and forth when re-installing windows.

 

[Macky]

That's a good idea Marc2003. Should I do this when I have installed Vista?

 

[Kezmo]

Another vote for setting up a partition or using another drive for games and steam. when installing w7 create a partition for it if you don't have another drive

 

[bledd]

just close steam

now copy the WHOLE steam folder

then on new machine, run steam.exe and it'll reinstall itself correctly.

I've done this about 25 times

but yes, leave say 50Gb on a drive for Windows 7, then on D:\, put steam and your docs etc

 

[dr4g0nf1y]

I just used the back up feature

 

[PhillyDee]

Both methods are good. I did it as I dual boot Vista and W7 (Although using W7 almost exclusivly as everything runs the same. I do a backup within steam for storage though.