Reinstalling Windows and Steam

[Atheus]

Hi all,

Feel free to skip the intro paragraph and just look at my questions below if you want

I'm about to reinstall Windows 7. It's a new install on a new machine bought a couple of weeks ago, but since I then I've upgraded the SSD firmware, switched to AHCI on the SATA controllers, added some hardware, messed with drivers trying to find an optimum config, etc etc... and it's becoming unstable now. I don't think there's anything actually wrong with any of the hardware, I just want to start with clean software again, so I can eliminate the conflicts I've undoubtably created. So... questions...

1) Steam (and all the games I managed to install so far) are on a separate mechanical HDD which will not be touched by the reformat/reinstall. I will have to reinstall standalone games, but is there any way to tell a new copy of Steam to use old files rather than downloading them yet again?

2) Can I keep my Steam saves? I assume those are hidden somewhere on the SSD, i.e. the C: drive, which is the one being reformatted. I also have saves from my old machine I'd like to transfer if possible.

Thanks for your help!

- Atheus

 

[sandorski]

Not sure about your Saves, IIRC some Games will use the Documents dir on C, but otherwise your Steam Games should just work normally.

 

[Atheus]

So I just reinstall Steam and all the games will still be there? Presumably I have to reinstall because of registry entries etc?

 

[sandorski]

So I just reinstall Steam and all the games will still be there? Presumably I have to reinstall because of registry entries etc?

You shouldn't need to Reinstall Steam. Just fire up the EXE.

 

[Atheus]

You shouldn't need to Reinstall Steam. Just fire up the EXE.

Oh really? That's great - thanks

So it creates its own registry enties etc on startup? And lets the games through the firewall? And all the other stuff a clean install does?

 

[sandorski]

Oh really? That's great - thanks

So it creates its own registry enties etc on startup? And lets the games through the firewall? And all the other stuff a clean install does?

Windows will probably want you to confirm the Firewall access, but everything should work fine.