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After a very long time I wanted to install half-life 2 again, but when I tried to do so it gave me an error without a message. When I select the games I want to install (original version so only CSS / HL2), and push next the error pops up. I have tried to install it with and without CSS but both lead to the same popup.

I tried uninstalling steam and let that be installed by the dvd too but that didn't work either.

I'm running a fully updated legal version of Windows 7 on a laptop (Dell Inspiron 15R with an i3 / integrated intel video acceleration).

I hope somebody can help me with this, I cannot find the issue on google and downloading it from steam takes ages :(

Screenshot for the sake of being thorough:

screenshot of an empty message box appearing during the install

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I just installed half-life 2 and cs:s from dvd on windows 7 64bit (with steam already on my pc). Worked fine for me. Had to install loads of updates though. – tm1rbrt Dec 29 '10 at 18:40
Seems like an unlocalized error message, that is, there might be no error text in the steam language you are using. Are you using another language in Steam than english? – Bora Dec 29 '10 at 22:17
On a side note, the version of HL2 on Steam uses a newer game engine than the original boxed copy. They upgraded the PC version to the newer Orangebox engine when they released the Mac version. – user2974 Dec 30 '10 at 21:45

4 Answers

up vote 0 down vote

If I recall correctly, installing HL2 from the disc validates against your steam account. So after the first install, you no longer require the disc. It was unclear from your post whether or not you tried installing completely via steam digital distribution (downloading).

edit: actually, you do mention that you don't want to try installing from steam. I think this is your solution. If you have broadband, it'll take about 1/2 hour to download.

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I know you can install the game via steam, the problem is the services are being rather weird right now. Even though I have 6Mb/s bandwith it's just giving me 30KB/s, which is ofcourse enough to download the game in the long run, but not really an ideal solution if I have the dvd with the data right here. – Shokora Dec 29 '10 at 20:17
I agree it is not ideal. The next obvious question is whether you tested your bandwidth using some other site? I know they are having a massive sale going on, but 30 KBs is pretty appalling – horatio Dec 29 '10 at 20:22
@Shokora The Steam CDN is really quite overloaded by all the sales going on. You can switch to a different server, although it will take some experimentation to find a good one. (I should know, I went through maybe twenty in the last days... ;)) Steam (menu) -> Settings -> Downloads + Cloud -> Download region. Then it will ask you to restart Steam and you'll have to do that to apply the change. – Cort Dec 30 '10 at 0:51
up vote 0 down vote

There is installscript_log.txt in Logs folder of your Steam instalation. Is there any info? What about other log files there? Did you check Windows EventViewer? I have OrangeBox, installed from DVD many times with no problem, Win7 64bit.

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up vote 0 down vote

Just to go through the obvious things: do you have enough free disk space? Maybe even a bit more than it reports to need?

Also, are you really supposed to select the Steam directory? Have you tried another directory, maybe even a simpler one? (e.g. c:\hl2)

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I have 80GB free, this should be quite sufficient. I can't select another destination folder. – Shokora Dec 30 '10 at 18:10
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Weird thing, even though I restarted multiple times yesterday, when I tried it today it just worked o_O So I have no idea what really caused it to fail so many times...

Anyway, thanks for all the attempts to help, appreciate it :)

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You should accept this answer then. – Cort Jan 5 '11 at 14:56

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