Most everything with Steam runs off disk and online to start with. You only see much installed to the drive itself generally game configuration, install logs, account info, activation info there.
Have fun reinstalling Ornage Box. Mirrorboy Despite once activated to one install of the 7 beta the option to reinstall once the RCs were out was NULL! Typical of Steam!
i had a problem where half life 2 would not run on my 64-bit (vista) system via steam. when i contacted steam support, they told me to:
right click the game > click the 'Set Launch Options' box > in the box type "-32 bit" (without the quotes). that fix helped me through my vista 64-bit install--although i have not run into any problems with my windows 7 64-bit install... so i haven't had to implement that specific launch option.
FEAR2 /Steam went right on more then one 64bit RC now retail installation without problems. When going to reinstall the HL2 OBox following the out of beta to RC reinstall no go at all! Steam never replied to a support request either.
That wasn't the first OB to toss either! Going from Vista to the 7 beta was no go there as well.
Night Hawk I may be reading this wrong but...FEAR2 /Steam went right on more then one 64bit RC now retail installation without problems. When going to reinstall the HL2 OBox following the out of beta to RC reinstall no go at all! Steam never replied to a support request either.
That wasn't the first OB to toss either! Going from Vista to the 7 beta was no go there as well.
I'm guessing you're saying you can't re-install HL2 Orange Box, nor can you reinstall FEAR2 because Steam is saying you’ve installed them already?
Hmmm.... you shouldn't have to reinstall those games (well unless you completely overwrote the Steam directory). That’s the one good thing about Steam; they keep the games on a server, but if you overwrite the main Steam directory, yeah reinstall time.
I've switched from XP - Vista 32 - Vista 64 (twice) to Windows 7 and all I've ever done was just reinstall the Steam client, that's it. I've never had to reinstall any of my Steam games - HL2 OB, EP1&2, and FEAR2 doing it this way, but then again I keep the Steam main directory on a separate HD that never gets overwritten during an OS change.
If you're not doing it this way, I would suggest you do. It cuts down on the game reinstalls.
I know this doesn't help now, but... :)
Yes you can install it anywhere you want and on any HDD and it will still work...and if you use a diffrent Hard drive/partition and reinstall you only have to reinstall steam and not all the games to get them to run (Tho I did so myself without reinstalling steam before :P
Darn I also have steam set up on E: (that is my game partition) small world
I think you missed what I was pointing out there. FEAR2 was already run on the RCs and now the 3 retail installations after seeing entire drives wiped plus a new one added in later. I simply log onto the account for that and watch the game files updated from the Steam server.Night Hawk I may be reading this wrong but...FEAR2 /Steam went right on more then one 64bit RC now retail installation without problems. When going to reinstall the HL2 OBox following the out of beta to RC reinstall no go at all! Steam never replied to a support request either.
That wasn't the first OB to toss either! Going from Vista to the 7 beta was no go there as well.
I'm guessing you're saying you can't re-install HL2 Orange Box, nor can you reinstall FEAR2 because Steam is saying you’ve installed them already?
Hmmm.... you shouldn't have to reinstall those games (well unless you completely overwrote the Steam directory). That’s the one good thing about Steam; they keep the games on a server, but if you overwrite the main Steam directory, yeah reinstall time.
I've switched from XP - Vista 32 - Vista 64 (twice) to Windows 7 and all I've ever done was just reinstall the Steam client, that's it. I've never had to reinstall any of my Steam games - HL2 OB, EP1&2, and FEAR2 doing it this way, but then again I keep the Steam main directory on a separate HD that never gets overwritten during an OS change.
If you're not doing it this way, I would suggest you do. It cuts down on the game reinstalls.
I know this doesn't help now, but... :)
When switching from the 7 beta builds with the OBox on the 32bit there it wouldn't update on the RCs. Even after a reinstall of one beta leaving files and folders intact there was no reinstall option.
On the other hand if you go with the ones labeled "Games for Windows" on the disk that run off of the disk itself you can reinstall those following any repair or clean install. And the E drive here is an optical drive not HD.
Now you see why I try to avoid Steam when possible despite having no problems with Fear2 there as far as multibooting. I never install things to other partitions or drives mainly other drives here since those are already in use.
(gee I'll install C folders on G and F folders on C and ... wouldn't work too well)
I keep all my games on a completely seperate HD. In the case of the steam games all I have to do is reinstall the steam client and all is good. No fuss, no muss. :)
Having four HD's in my system, I have one for...
Windows 7
Vista
XP
Games
Works for me :)
Having 5 HDs the drives have different purposes then gaming to begin with also considering what would one drive alone see.
1)new host/boot drive just added 7 64bit retail
2)first 7 64bit retail can be used for stand alone
3)formerly Vista then RC now 32bit 7 retail
(each OS drive is self contained, sees all programs installed on same drive)
4)backup images, Windows Easy Transfers, VM projects, other data
5)main storage drive
And that doesn't even include the OSs on VMs. Works here.
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