How to Reinstall Steam Without Losing Games
Have you ever experienced a situation where you had to reinstall your operating system, but didn’t have the time to back up your Steam games? Or maybe you needed to reinstall Steam on another computer and forgot to save your games. If so, then this article is for you. Here are some quick steps to help you reinstall Steam without losing any of your games.
What Happens When You Reinstall Steam
When you reinstall Steam, all of your saved games will be deleted. If you want to save your games, then install the games on a different computer before you uninstall the old one.
How to Keep Your Games If You Reinstall Steam
First, back up your games. From the “Library,” click “Steam” on the left-hand side of the window. Then, go to “Backup and Restore.” Next, create a backup file. From here, you can select which games you would like to save and when it is being saved. After that, select “Create Backup” and save the file somewhere safe.
Next, reset Steam. This will completely delete everything in your library and download a fresh copy of everything again. If you are reinstalling Steam on another computer (or if you just want to start over with a clean slate), then this is what you need to do next:
1. Delete all files from your old Steam installation
2. Install Steam on new computer
3. Go back into settings menu in new installation of Steam and choose “Deactivate my account”
4. Sign in with new computer/new username
5. Wait for game downloads to finish processing
The Potential Downfall of a Reinstallation
A reinstallation of your operating system will not only delete all the games that you’ve installed, but it will also delete any saved game progress. Even if you do have a backup, there is no guarantee that your saved game progress will be transferred over to the new installation. That means that you might lose hours or days of in-game time, or even some levels or unlocks.
Reinstalling Steam on Windows 10
First, download the installer from the website. Then close all apps that you have open and proceed.
Next, start by opening the Start menu and finding “Control Panel.” When you find it, click on “Programs and Features” to open the next screen. Once there, scroll down until you find “Steam,” right-click on it, select “Properties,” and then click on “Uninstall.”
Then follow these steps:
Click on “Add/Remove Programs” in the left-hand window to open a list of programs installed on your computer. Scroll through this list until you see Steam listed. Right-click on it and select “Remove” to remove Steam from your computer.
Then run the installer again with Administrator privileges when prompted at the end of the installation process to finish installing Steam.
Reinstalling Steam on Mac OS X
1. If you have access to your old hard drive, download the Steam installer from the website and put it on the hard drive.
2. Connect that hard drive to your new computer and open Finder.
3. Select the Applications folder and open Library > Application Support > Steam > Library Folder.
4. Open Contents and then drag all of your game files into a new folder called “Steam.”
5. Delete everything in the “Steam” folder and start Steam again, then launch any games you wanted to keep from there on out!
6. If you don’t have access to your old hard drive or it’s not safe for you to use, try this alternative: download the installation file for Steam from a friend or through a website like Google Drive or Dropbox, then reinstall Steam on your computer using that file instead of downloading it from the original website (you’ll still need to install it from scratch).
Troubleshooting Tips When Reinstalling Steam
If you do not have the time to back up your games, then the best thing you can do is make sure to uninstall Steam first. If you’ve already made a backup of your games, then follow these steps below:
1. Uninstall Steam
2. Delete Steam folder
3. Navigate to C:\Users\UserName\AppData\LocalLow and delete the Steam folder (this will clean out any old Steam files that may be there) 4. Reinstall Steam 5. Download and install all of your games from their respective websites 6. Play!
FAQs
Q. I need to reinstall Steam on my PC, but I don’t have the installation CD. What should I do?
A. You can download the installer from https://store.steampowered.com/installer/ and use that to install Steam instead of using the CD version.
Conclusion
The most common mistake people make when reinstalling the Steam client is losing the games they own. The good news is that even if you lose games, you can reinstall and keep them all with a little bit of effort.
In addition, there are a few troubleshooting tips that can help you reinstall Steam to its fullest potential. If you are still having issues, be sure to check out the FAQs for more help.
