Steam game backup facility

DarrenM343

DarrenM343

DarrenM343

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Joined
19 Oct 2008
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I wish the damn thing would backup saved games too. Been working my way through the original Stalker recently and loving it. Installed an SSD yesterday but used the steam backup facility expecting it to backup the saved games also but when I restored the backup I just had a plain old install of Stalker, without the Complete mod that was originally installed and with no saved gamese.
Wish it would:
1. Tell you when you backup a game that saved games won't be copied giving you the chance to do it yourself.
2. Provide a backup facility for saved games.

Annoyed :(. I'm never going to complete the game at this rate.
 
... it warns you it doesn't backup save games.

And there is no way in hell they could provide a backup for that when games use save file locations all over the place, its your job to find them. Hell its not hard, the majority of them are in My Documents or My Documents/My Games.

Seriously what were you expecting? Besides the steam backup fails and you should just copy the folder across, which would probably include mods with it.
 
Fair point, I must have missed the warning about the saved games.
I've just realised I still have the old HDD everything was installed on as I didn't bother wiping it before I removed it which is what I would usually do.I'll plug it back in and have a rumage around.
 
I wanted to bump this to ask a quick question as i am sure a few of you might have done it. I have built a new PC and will need to reinstall steam, is the best way to install steam then just copy the steam folder from my old HDD to my new machine or would i need to use the backup facility in steam? Also will it make a difference moving from XP to win7? I would search the net but our work network blocks game related sites.
 
In my experience the best thing to do is to move the steam folder to where you want it to be then install steam to that place too. It will just overwrite the program files but not touch your games. And then when you log in the games will be picked up and ready to play (it might do the installing Dx thing thinking it is the first time you have run the game for each game you play but that will only happen the once.)
 
Thanks for that, sounds like a pretty good way of doing it. I think i remember reading of a few people of who copied over there steam folders and it worked.
 
Don't even have to reinstall steam.

I've still got the same steam folder since I first setup my account years ago.

Just move the entire directory to wherever you want it to be, then just run the steam exe from there, it'll work fine.

I've moved my steam directory all over the place when reshuffling my hdd's over the years :D
 
Just make sure that once you have moved the steam folder, change the folder permissions to allow full control for the current user for all subfolders/files, otherwise when you run the steam.exe, it won't be able to run.
 
PC saved games are a problem. Wish they'd sorted this but years of O/S changes, Steam Cloud and other factors means that game saves and settings are all over your HDD....

Most are in your my documents somewhere, some place them in your appdata folder for vista and windows 7 etc. Steam has cloud if the game supports it, that makes it a darn sight easier...

Its just of the problems with PC gaming.. No central save location. Best option is to move the entire steam folder and also copy your profile and my documents if you intend to reformat and re-install, and then you might have saved your save games somewhere... this is what I always do..
 
Thanks guys, seems very easy to do. Some saves im not to fussed about but some new games i bought from the steam deals i would like to keep. Im pretty sure i copied over my HL2 saves last time so i will look to see if the rest are there.
 
A quick Google for "[game name] save game location" should give you the location you require.

Takes ~30 seconds to do, but saves plenty of time later on!
 
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