The More You Know » Move Your Steam Install

Move Your Steam Install

Update:There is an “official” Steam post on how to do this. While the steps below will work, you can also use this method. However it will require you to reinstall steam/update the client. The method below still works and requires no downloads/updates/installs.

Moving your steam install? How? This question was raised after I installed Steam and downloaded Half-Life2, Episode One, Lost Coast, and Team Fortress 2 and fully patched them all. I installed Steam to my C: drive and figured that I would get to chose where each purchased game is installed to. Not true!

Steam runs all of its games as subsidiary applications of Steam. Each of the newer Steam based games stores all of its data files and executables under the same directory structure as the Steam client install!

For me, I have one disk for windows and a raid array for games. Having my games run off of my windows drive was getting to me as I know I could have faster load times. After some Googling, I found out how to do it! I compiled directions from a few sources as well as from my experience doing it!

It worked flawlessly for me! However, if you mess it up its your fault and you can just do a fresh install to fix things (you will just have to wait for the dl again though).

 

Rules!

  1. Steam and all games must stay in thier current directory strucutre
  2. That means you can’t split games and steam up across drives
  3. You can only have 1 active steam install
  4. This will break all shortcuts for games/steam. You will have to manually recreate or fix them. (not hard)

 

Steps: Moving The Install

  1. Shut down steam if it is running (right click system tray icon => exit)
  2. COPY the steam directory from the original location to the new one.
  3. Rename the original directory. (e.g C:/Program Files/Valve => C:/Program Files/Valve_ORIG or C:/Program Files/Steam => C:/Program Files/Steam_ORIG)
  4. In the new directory (not original), delete the file named “ClientRegistry.blob”.
  5. Manually run “steam.exe” in the newly copied directory.
  6. Watch steam “update” a.k.a verify itself. It won’t download anything/need to reinstall.
  7. Run a game to verify it works
  8. Delete the ORIGINAL install (e.g. C:/Program Files/Valve => C:/Program Files/Valve_ORIG or C:/Program Files/Steam => C:/Program Files/Steam_ORIG )
  9. Done, except for fixing short cuts on your desktop/start menu (see below)

Updating the Shortcuts

  1. Find the short cut that needs to be fixed either on your desktop or in the start menu
  2. Right click it
  3. Chose “Properties”
  4. Change the “Start in” property to reflect the new drive & directory path (e.g “C:\Program Files\Steam\” => “X:\Program Files\Steam\” )
  5. Change the “Target” value to use the new drive & directory path. The STEAM shortcut can’t have i its target edited, don’t worry it will work! (e.g “C:\Program Files\Steam\Steam.exe” -applaunch 440 => “X:\Program Files\Steam\Steam.exe” -applaunch 440 )
  6. Click Apply, Click Ok
  7. Repeate
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Saturday, September 29th, 2007 Games Trackback URL

20 Comments

  • 1. fast_eddie replies at 10th October 2007, 6:11 pm :

    Thanks a lot for this!!

    It has saved my a lot of time and hassle and has freed up a lot of my C drive for other uses!!

    Cheers!

  • 2. Pierre replies at 20th October 2007, 8:51 pm :

    This didn’t work for my Steam install.. now when I start a game I get ‘platform error: module not found’ error…

  • 3. Whitehorse replies at 1st November 2007, 1:59 am :

    Dude! Thanks a MILLION!!!
    Steam has been eating up my hard drive like a revnant from resident evil….and you are the cure!
    Big Thumbs Up!!!

  • 4. Adam replies at 8th November 2007, 7:52 pm :

    Thanks! Very useful!

  • 5. titanfus replies at 17th November 2007, 1:25 pm :

    THANK YOU! — One less reason to despise Steam, but there are plenty more unfortunately.

  • 6. Lars replies at 18th November 2007, 10:28 am :

    It worked great! thank you!

  • 7. Hiddepolen replies at 24th November 2007, 7:06 am :

    Thanks!!!

    It helped me soooo much, now i can use my C:/ drive nomrally again

  • 8. John replies at 8th December 2007, 6:54 pm :

    You, sir, deserve a medal. Worked perfectly. Thanks!

  • 9. Your Neighbour replies at 13th December 2007, 6:09 am :

    This is very helpful, I have been seeking for such guide over the internet, you should suggest for a sticky on Steam forums.

  • 10. Your Neighbour replies at 13th December 2007, 6:28 am :

    Actually there’s a easier way, I found this link on Steam Support :

    Steam Support Forums

    It tells a easier way of doing it.

  • 11. Edd replies at 30th December 2007, 10:16 am :

    Worked great, thanks.

  • 12. Costanzafaust replies at 16th January 2008, 6:42 am :

    Nice guide. I didn’t want to have to uninstall and redownload steam, and this method worked.

    I also did a backup of the registry and then a search and replace thru the registry of any C:\Program Files\Steam, changing the drive letter to the new partition.
    One of the uninstall entries was under C:\Progra~1\Steam as well.

    I think there are some OS registry settings that don’t get automatically fixed by deleting clientregistry.blob.

  • 13. Therion Ware replies at 17th January 2008, 1:20 pm :

    Hi

    Thanks for that. Dead useful, and worked first time.

    Rgds
    TW.

  • 14. stufff replies at 31st January 2008, 1:49 am :

    This worked flawlessly, thank you very much. Rather than edit the properties of each start menu shortcut one by one however, I deleted them all, made desktop shortcuts of all the games via Steam, and then just dragged and dropped all the desktop shortcuts into the start menu folder.

  • 15. Jeff replies at 18th August 2008, 1:06 pm :

    Thank you so much!

  • 16. Mashi Maro replies at 1st September 2008, 11:53 pm :

    Thanks, very helpful!

    Solution worked on 64bit AMD x2 2.0 GHz running Windows Vista.

  • 17. AlphaW0lf replies at 2nd November 2008, 10:47 am :

    Thanks very much for this!!! I didnt want to resize my partition so this really came in handy to switch my steam-install to my D-drive. Thanks a lot! Good tutorial!

  • 18. OMIGHTY1 replies at 4th November 2008, 4:26 pm :

    Thank you so much! This worked epicly well! More speed and space for me! XD!

  • 19. kieran replies at 12th November 2008, 5:39 am :

    Thanks alot for posting, awesome work… extreme dude!

  • 20. Azarien replies at 16th November 2008, 10:55 am :

    Works.

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