question about backing up steam games: 32bit to 64bit

[minmaster]

ok so i'm planning to upgrade to win7 64bit from vista 32bit. can i back up my steam games and restore them in win7 64bit? basically what i'm asking is are my vista 32bit game files good on 64bit? i remember hearing how some games have separate executable for 64bit OS.

 

[Fox5]

Go into the steam folder and copy the steamapps folder. Just move this over to the new installation, double click on the game, and it'll automatically find the files and reinstall it for you.

And afaik, no steam games use 64 bit executables. Even for games that support it, it's generally not worth the trouble. You'll be hard pressed to find any games that use 64 bit exes, actually.

 

[43st]

Steam actually has a backup feature.. it'll even split it into volumes if you wish. Just use that. More info here.

 

[Lonyo]

Steam actually has a backup feature.. it'll even split it into volumes if you wish. Just use that. More info here.

There's no point in using the Steam backup feature unless he's reformatting the drive with Steam on it. Otherwise just leave it in place/copy it somewhere as-is for a backup, then copy it back and reinstall Steam to the same directory. It will pick up all your files/games as-was.

 

[minmaster]

god i forgot about configs... and more importantly my player profiles for COD... thanks for reminding me with that link.

i did previously test out the backup feature and it seemed pretty straight forward. but if fox5's method of just copying the whole steamapp folder works, i might just do that. sounds quick and easy. thanks again.

 

[minmaster]

There's no point in using the Steam backup feature unless he's reformatting the drive with Steam on it. Otherwise just leave it in place/copy it somewhere as-is for a backup, then copy it back and reinstall Steam to the same directory. It will pick up all your files/games as-was.

i am reformatting the drive with steam on it. but i'll try to back up the steamapps to an external HD. i only have 1 internal HD though so i couldn't keep all my steam stuff on a separate HD.

 

[Fox5]

Just a warning, some games may write their save and config data to the windows user apps folder, instead of steamapps.

 

[minmaster]

are all the games supposed to be in steamapps/common? cuz i don't see team fortress 2 there. i do see a team fortress 2 folder in steamapps/username but that folder is only 209MB, and there's a source sdk folder of only 40MB. but TF2 can't be that small, where's the rest of it?

 

[PieIsAwesome]

I have my steam program folder on a shared partition between XP 32-bit, Server 2008 64 bit, and Windows 7 64 bit (trial). I run the existing steam executable within its program folder on all OS's without problems. When I delete or install an OS, I just format the partition that the OS was on, but leave the large, shared partition with steam on it untouched. If there is something missing that is needed when first running steam or any steam apps in a recently installed OS, steam installs it. The only thing you really need to be aware of are game saves. I can't seem to share my Dawn of War 2 saves, for example.

 

[Fox5]

are all the games supposed to be in steamapps/common? cuz i don't see team fortress 2 there. i do see a team fortress 2 folder in steamapps/username but that folder is only 209MB, and there's a source sdk folder of only 40MB. but TF2 can't be that small, where's the rest of it?

Valve games share resources.