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Another 'Moving Steam from a PC to a PC' except I know about the backup/restore games (which I can do, this question is not about that).

My issue is about LIBRARY SHARING.

My current (soon to be old) PC has my account and another family member's LIBRARY.

I'm going to turn off this current PC and use a new fancy pansy (ok, it's not really fancy, just newer) PC and my family member will not be available for a long time (editor: in the Armed Forces, off the grid, etc) to re-enable me sharing THEIR steam games library when I log into my account.

So, is there a way we can just copy some folder which includes any SHARED LIBRARY settings from old-pc -> new-pc, please? Not games, just settings, mainly the Library Sharing settings.

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  • Not sure about settings, but last time I looked into the Family Sharing, the answer was "can't be done": gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/276448/…
    – DJ Pirtu
    Jun 4, 2018 at 7:52
  • What I keep wondering is, this information (which other steam libraries this computer can access) has to physically exist somewhere ?
    – Pure.Krome
    Jun 4, 2018 at 8:03
  • I know, but the worst case scenario is, that it exists on Valve's servers. And since they're propably rather keen to keep people from exploiting the system, it's not that unlikely.
    – DJ Pirtu
    Jun 4, 2018 at 8:05
  • Not a solution - but a bypass(ish) - use Steam In-Home Streaming on your new pc looking at your old one, then play the games on your old one via your new display.
    – Rycochet
    Jun 4, 2018 at 12:44

1 Answer 1

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It is impossible to transfer the shared library to another device.

You can lose your family shared library by replacing a major piece of hardware in your PC (a cpu or gpu, etc), because it is tied to your unique hardware ID, which is generated as the sum of all of your (important) hardware. While it is probably possible to trick Steam into thinking your new PC has that library shared, it would have to be re-authorized again, defeating the whole purpose.

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    Do you have any sources about unique hardware ID ?
    – arghtype
    Jun 4, 2018 at 18:05
  • I don't have sources that there is such a thing, but if you google questions similar to this one, you can find plenty of reports of steam family sharing being lost after upgrading a graphics card or some other major component. Windows 8/10 OEM versions do a similar thing with its license.
    – Elise
    Jun 7, 2018 at 0:33

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