Steam question - game uninstalling

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Hey peeps,

Looked throught the steam site but couldn't find an answer...

If I want to uninstall a game which I D/Ld from steam am I able to re-D/L it to play another time?
Or will I have to do the disc backup thing I've read about?

Basically I want to free up some space on my HDD and there's a couple games on there I don't reallly want installed anymore.
But was worried that if I deleted them I wouldn't be allowed to re-download them on a later date.

(I had that problem once before with i-Tunes when I deleted an album and I had to convince them that I accidently deleted it as they wanted me to buy it again -_-) Is it like that with Steam too?

This is precisely the reason I never wanted to use Steam but some games must use it :(

Thanks in advance!
 
Soldato
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You can do both. Re-download it or stick it on a backup disc to save you the time (unless you have a very, very fast connection)

The reason people talk of backups is because you can simply copy your entire steamapps (games) folder to an external HDD and restore it on different systems or after formating or whatever. Saves downloading 200+gb of games again.

General word of warning is never use the official steam backup feature, its useless ><
 
Soldato
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General word of warning is never use the official steam backup feature, its useless ><

I wouldn't say that, it deffinately has its uses. For instance, if you just want to back up a couple of games onto DVDs, you tell the backup feature you're using DVDs and it will compress the game files to fit on as few DVDs as possible. But that would be pretty useless and time consuming to back up more than about 50Gb worth though, and copying over the steam directory is infinitely easier and faster than waiting for steam to compress everything, and then uncompress it again after :p
 
Soldato
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Er... creating backups, no problem. Restoring backups... the steam feature is useless. Unless you do every game individually which would take an eternity unless you did it at release in which case you'd end up with lots of out of date games, trying to restore a large file just seems to result in crashes, there are endless topics on the steam forum about it.

If you intend to make DVDs of them, sure, use the steam backup for individual games. If you intend to make a very large backup on an external drive, copy the steamapps folder.
 

V_R

V_R

Soldato
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Rather than starting a new thread i'll ask this in here....

I've just got a new hard drive that i intend to use solely for Steam and the few other non steam games i have....

What s the best way of moving Steam to the new drive? I've moved it between builds before, but not on the same system. Does the same sort of process apply i assume?

Should i Copy the Steam folder, uninstall Steam, reinstall to new drive and copy back the steamapps folder?


Also this wouldn't break any saves etc would it?

Ta
 

uv

uv

Soldato
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What s the best way of moving Steam to the new drive?

No need to install anything - just copy the entire Steam folder to the new drive, uninstall the current Steam install, then launch the new Steam.exe - this will set it all up correctly on the secondary drive.

If it gives you any trouble, just delete everything but Steam.exe and the "steamapps" folder, then launch steam.exe again - it'll redownload all needed files.

Also this wouldn't break any saves etc would it?

It *may* - use GameSaveManager first to backup your saves - it's an awesome utility :)
 
Soldato
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i'm changing motherboards on monday, so have just copy/pasted steamapps to my external hdd, then i will put it back on when it's all fitted up. I've done it before and it's worked fine.
 
Associate
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I love the steam backup feature, I just right click on the a game press backup, choose an external drive, 1 file. Done this for all my steam games. When i want to install them on my new new system it takes between 2-3mintues to install each game so much better then fom a disc
 
Soldato
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I love the steam backup feature, I just right click on the a game press backup, choose an external drive, 1 file. Done this for all my steam games. When i want to install them on my new new system it takes between 2-3mintues to install each game so much better then fom a disc

I guess i should do this, i wasnt aware it was so easy.

Ive only got a 120gb ssd so space is at a premium.
 
Associate
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The steam backup and restore is superb! Used it for ages and it works a treat. I myself only have a 160gb SSD so swapping out installs of games that are backed up onto my storage drive is really helpful.

I've also read that just moving a steam games app files can cause little intermittent problems
 
Soldato
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Unless they've fixed it the steam backup is prone to failing when you're trying to restore a very large file. It will just crash over and over and never work. I maintain you're better off just copying the steamapps folder, works just as well.
 
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