Steam problem with DVD

Usher

Usher

Usher

Soldato
Joined
30 Dec 2004
Posts
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Worcestershire
I have a Steam account because some games won't play without it, however I don't download games as our internet is slow.

My dilemma is that twice before I have bought the DVD version of a game & during install it loads Steam & asks for the DVD Key, I type it in & the next thing I know it starts downloading the game & I can't stop it because it just resumes when I restart Steam.:mad:
I also cannot install the game from the DVD then either. How can I install the game without it automatically starting to download ?
If I select 'activate a game' it will ask for the key but will it then start downloading it??
 
Depends what is on the disc.

Start Steam download, stop it.

Copy contents from the DVD into the Steamapps>Common>(game) folder.

Start Steam again.

You may need to install a patch, but that needs to be downloaded.
 
Gimpymoo said:
Depends what is on the disc.

Start Steam download, stop it.

Copy contents from the DVD into the Steamapps>Common>(game) folder.

Start Steam again.

You may need to install a patch, but that needs to be downloaded.
Click to expand...

Right I'm trying that, It's copying now.
I did try selecting 'activate a game on DVD' first & sure enough the second I finished typing in the key it started to download the game :confused: what's the point of it doing that if I have the DVD version to install in 10 minutes? It would mean downloading about 6gig with our internet getting capped & all the rest of it.
 
I have found that with some games if you have Steam set to auto login once loaded. Meaning if you have your password and username saved it will start to auto download the games. If you have it where you need to put your password in before steam starts most times it will install the game from disk.
 
Usher said:
Right I'm trying that, It's copying now.
I did try selecting 'activate a game on DVD' first & sure enough the second I finished typing in the key it started to download the game
Click to expand...

Think that's your problem. There isn't a specific "activate from DVD" option is there? Just one that you can activate keys with, but that will just activate it on your account and has nothing to do with the disk.

You need to run the autorun executable on the disk to install from it afaik.
 
Kenai said:
Apparently if you go to 'Run' and type in:

Code: 
"C:\Program Files\Steam\Steam.exe" -install E:

... it will work.

Obviously change C: to whichever drive you have Steam on and E: to whatever your disc drive is called.
Click to expand...

Quote of a post last time I saw someone with this issue
 
To be honest I have never had this problem before and I have installed 3 games from DVD: MW2, L4D and Fallout:NV.

The only reason I can think of for it doing this to you is that the game you are trying to install has had some massive updates and Steam deems it necessary to download the game instead of just installing it.
 
Steam does do this a lot, it's not really an unheard of problem, it has an annoying habit of electing to ignore DVDs.

You're one of the lucky ones if it hasn't done it to you :p
 
TheEnosFam said:
I have found that with some games if you have Steam set to auto login once loaded. Meaning if you have your password and username saved it will start to auto download the games. If you have it where you need to put your password in before steam starts most times it will install the game from disk.
Click to expand...

It triggered Steam to load from the moment I inserted the disk& you can't continue without it,
I got a new Aliens V Predator for £4 & that's what I'm trying to install, I installed Metro2033 from DVD without problems whatsoever but just Cause2 forced me to download it.

Looking on the net it seems that it happens a lot so maybe Steam make it difficult in order to persuade you to buy a download from them, On Steam forums I got the bit about C:\Program Files\Steam\Steam.exe" -install D: but it doesn't work for me for some reason
 
Finally got it going, refuse to install from disk on Win764 but on my old drive XP32 it's installing from disk altho it's doing it via a Steam pop up which says Alens vs predator Internal - note the last word

Annoyingly I don't want it on this drive as it's nearly full & it didn't give me any option to select another drive, the game is probably carp from what i read :p
 
You can't select another drive to install to, you can however move the stuff around afterwards with mklinks (or there are tools that can do it, but i forget the name of them)
 
Just saw this on the latest update for Steam:

"Fixed retail disc install not using all available files causing additional downloads in some cases."
 
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