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I installed Windows 8 on a second drive and made a Junction for Steamapps so Steam on Windows 8 could access all the 100+ already downloaded games from Windows 7. This almost worked, but each and every game wants to validate and/or redownload files if I try to launch them, and my "installed" list acts as if these games weren't there at all.

I have full access to the Windows 7 partition which "knows" which games are installed--how can I either copy files from Windows 7 or otherwise force Windows 8 steam to realize it's already got all these games downloaded?

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  • What directories did you make junctions for? Steam may be confused because it never registered a complete installation on your new drive. Maybe if you delete everything except Steam.exe and the steamapps folder Steam will recheck installed games.
    – oldmud0
    May 27, 2014 at 0:42
  • @oldmud0 Steamapps is the only Junction. I tried copying all of Steam's program files directory into the new install too. This (fortunately) gave me my non-steam games, but didn't fix the Steam games.
    – Ben Brocka
    May 28, 2014 at 2:15

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In my experience with upgrading operating systems, putting the contents of the games folder in the (in your case) windows 7 steam folder, into the windows 8 one, launching through steam works, as long as the files are put in the correct path. It will appear in your library as uninstalled, however when you launch then it'll 'validate' and be ready to play in, at most, 5-10 seconds.

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  • Yeah that's the state I'm in--but I'd rather not manually press validate on 100+ games if at all possible
    – Ben Brocka
    May 27, 2014 at 2:04
  • unfortunately that's the only way to do it, it takes so little time that you can wait until you want to play the game to validate the files and it'll be fine to play very quickly.
    – MechanicalBanana
    May 27, 2014 at 4:04
  • Unsure if you can batch install games in Steam but making Steam install the game into the same folder will have the same effect than trying to start it.
    – Jonathan Drapeau
    May 27, 2014 at 11:49
  • I'm talking about adding the previous game files to the new steam directory, not installing from steam into the previous directory.
    – MechanicalBanana
    May 27, 2014 at 13:32
  • Yeah, it's way faster than downloading, just hoped I could skip it...oh well. Big Picture makes it slightly faster, but other than that they really haven't streamlined steam for multiple downloads since I got it
    – Ben Brocka
    May 28, 2014 at 2:14

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