Does any one of you gents know of a program to move files and such without losing their extensions?

For example, I have some games installed on my C drive, which also contains my copy of Windows 7. If for some reason I needed to do a clean install of Windows 7, I'd like to move those said games to another hard drive without much hassle (aside from expected shortcut issues).

Something that would make the process quick and painless, especially for games and programs which require keys.

Without losing what extensions?

Oh you mean stuff in the registry and such? I thought you meant . (Something) extensions.
As far as I know, no. Although some games are what I like to call "OS independent" and can be run from a different OS then they installed on, but that's the exception to the rule.
Steam however is totally independent.

It's really hard to say. Games can put files basically anywhere they want... there are some standard locations, but only for games that have a GFW/GFWL logo on the box.

No it isn't. Steam will store your CD keys, though.

Yes it is, I haven't reinstalled steam in 4 years, in the time I have formatted C: 6 times.. I also ran it while duel booted with XP and only "Installed" it on 7.
Just run it with admin privileges and put in your password, and you're set.

Annoyance: games that litter my Documents folder with saved games instead of using appdata.

God yes, I wish games could just chose a single place.
MS has tried, but nobody ever uses "My Games", Stalker uses the public folder.

Settings, savegames, addons, mods, active CD key, required libraries and registry entries are not stored in the Steam directory. You are still required to do everything except the act of physically putting the CD in your computer and double-clicking on "install."

It actually depends on the game. Most Source engine games actually store most, if not all of their information in Steam's folder. Configs, save games, mods, etc.

There are a few other non-source games, non-valve games that store stuff like save games in the steam folder as well, like Defense Grid.

All in all, yes, not everything ports over cleanly, and for any game requiring registry entries (cd keys), they will require a full reinstall. But it's a lot better than no games porting over.

HL1/HL2 mods are kept, and it's great to not have to reinstall 100 gigs of steam games.

200 here >_>

Why are you needing to do a clean install of Windows?

Perform a repair install of windows instead of a full reinstall (if possible). I think in Vista and above it's called 'Repair problems with windows starting' or something similar. You should be able to do this from any Windows 7 CD if you don't have a recovery partition.

Maybe he just wants it to be a clean slate? I know I like to format atleast every year.
Although now that I run a clean ship, rather then formatting I just trim off the fat every once and a while.

Ah, I apologize I should have been more specific.

I'm looking for something to move whole programs and games automatically. I could do this by copying and pasting the folders but sometimes the programs and games will not work, or I need to reenter a CD key or reinstall the game to use it again.

I am not formatting right now, but I have run into this problem in the past, when it comes to acquiring nasty viruses and the likes, and would like to be prepared if something like this happens again.

Get descent Antivirus (particularly for email scanning) and Malware software and use them frequently. Better yet: Stop downloading from warez sites and delete your Peer-to-Peer software. If you do that and you're running Windows Vista or above with Account Control turned on, you shouldn't have anything to worry about. Malwarebytes will catch and remove most things. ComboFix (with the executible renamed to something else), should remove the really nasty stuff.

However, if you're really paranoid, you could try doing a Windows Backup. There's an option to do a full drive state backup. Perform a backup after you install a new game.

Your best bet is going to be to image your hard drive using a utility like Acronis TrueImage or Norton Ghost. That way if something bad happens and you need to revert, you simply back up the stuff *not* in your most recent image and then go back to that build of your machine.

Windows 7 backup also has a system image utility built in

Shouldn't be running Steam with admin privileges, because then any games it launches will run with them even if they don't need them.

Instead just run Steam normally, it should prompt for elevation ONCE to install a service to handle admin tasks. Then never again. Steam runs fine as a normal user for me.

If it complains when you run it instead, the service installation might only happen at install time; either run the installer, or if you know how to use sc.exe you can install the service yourself with these settings:



On 32-bit systems lose the "(x86)" bit, and verify the path before you go slapping on a service pointing to nowhere.

I mean Just the first time, after you install windows so that it will install the client service.
Past that it works as no... oh that's what you said.

certain games (mass effect, bioshock, something else i dont remember) on steam need to have steam running elevated or they wont launch.