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Does anyone know if it is at all possible to install Portal 2 purely from retail DVD? I purchased my copy just yesterday and after going to about 4% the installer has now begun hogging my bandwidth by pulling the remaining 96% from Steam (online).

I am hoping and praying that someone can advise how to install 96% of the game from disk and have Steam only download the remaining 4% - if at all that's possible. I've looked on the Steam forums too, but there seem to be numerous similar complaints.

It just beats the purpose of having a dedicated retail disk for install - which by the way is 5.6 gigs in size - and I would imagine it to contain most (if not all) of the file needed to complete a Portal 2 Steam-less installation.

Update- I'm running Win 7 x64. Here's a screenshot of the contents of the DVD. The Resources folder only contains various language versions of steam installer (English, Thai and Chinese). What's the deal with all those Portal2_disk1_x.sid files? Screenshot of Portal 2 DVD contents

Update 2 - Just wanted to let everyone know that the download has completed after 14 long hours and the game works just fine!

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    Can't really answer this myself, but have you tried disconnecting from the internet before installing? Maybe if it can't find a connection it will install normally.
    – Doozer Blake
    May 1, 2011 at 6:55
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    Do note that you will have to patch before playing the game, though I'm not sure if steam will let you run the installed-but-not-patched version in offline mode.
    – Raven Dreamer
    May 1, 2011 at 7:13
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    @Blake - Yep that's the first thing I tried. And it gave me a message saying I can't install without having a live connection to the internet. @Raven - I sure don't mind having to patch. I'm just peeved that I have to (re?)download the 10 gigs that are probably sitting compressed on my retail DVD.
    – kpax
    May 1, 2011 at 8:38
  • Could you please open a terminal (Windows-R, cmd, Enter), run tree D: > dvd.txt /A (assuming your Portal 2 DVD is placed in drive letter D), then notepad dvd.txt, copy paste the output on pastebin (or somesuch) and share the output with us so we can get an idea of what's on the DVD where?
    – badp
    May 1, 2011 at 10:04
  • @kpax - for your future reference, only the first @<username> works in a comment. I didn't get a notification when you posted above, only Blake did.
    – Raven Dreamer
    May 1, 2011 at 17:54

3 Answers 3

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Go into Steam and select Steam -> Backup and Restore Games.... In the Backup and Restore dialog, select the Restore radio box and click next. Then browse to the root of the CD. It should say it found a backup for Portal 2. Click next, and it should install the majority of the game.

Note that I haven't tried this and offer no guarantees that it will work better than what you've tried already.

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    Thanks, I hadn't gone the "backup and restore" route, but after doing that, it pauses the download, verifies the game cache and then simply says all files validated successfully. The installer then unpauses and still continues to download from where it left off without showing any progress towards having loaded the files from the DVD. I'm guessing what this means is its juiced the DVD for whatever files it could get and now the "freshest" content will be downloaded direct from Steam.
    – kpax
    May 1, 2011 at 12:59
  • I have followed the above steps. After running the install, it tells me that the Steam servers are too busy to handle my request and to try later, so the install from disk does not work
    – user11017
    Jul 11, 2011 at 19:37
  • @hunnie: There is a lot of content not included on the disk. Portal 2 will have to do updates before playing it for the first time, which means having to download them from Valve.
    – MBraedley
    Jul 13, 2011 at 8:05
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Found the answer on the Steam site.

  • Mac users... it seems to be dead.

  • PC users : follow these steps.

    1. Log in to Steam and click on Library.
    2. Right-click on the game, select Delete local content, and confirm.
    3. Insert the first disc into your computer.
    4. Close Steam (Steam > Exit).
    5. Press Windows Key + R to open Run

    6. In the Run window type:

      "C:\Program Files\Steam\Steam.exe" -install E:

      Replace E: with the CD/DVD drive you are installing from if is not correct. Replace C:\Program Files\Steam if your Steam installation is not in the default location.

    7. Press OK. Steam will launch and ask you to sign in if you do not have your password saved. Your installation should continue from the disc.

From : https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=5357-FSQM-0382


This works well ! It installed from the disk up to 93%. Then you have to download the remaining 7% before you can play.
Enjoy !

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    If only this answer had come in 1 day earlier! I haven't tried it since it finished downloading (and works) but I encourage others to try and update this post if it works.
    – kpax
    May 3, 2011 at 4:12
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    if your running windows 64bit you might need to change it to Program File(x86) and then check what your disk drive is, mine was D: not E:. but other then that, it worked perfect for me.
    – user9970
    May 29, 2011 at 14:23
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All I can tell is that it IS possible. Only I don't know how to achieve that consistently. As for me, Portal 2 installed from DVD (actually, from two DVDs). IL-2 Sturmovick: Cliffs of Doved started downloading from internet, but then playing with reboots, steam lauched/closed on setup.exe launch etc. helped me to install IL-2 from DVD.

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    Would have been better as a comment.
    – o0'.
    May 2, 2011 at 11:46

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