Question regarding Steam

[wookster]

Question regarding Steam...my PC recently crashed...and I mean crashed...but it was time for an upgrade anyway. My question, will I be able to load Steam onto the new machine, log into it and begin to download and install the games again on the new machine? Or would they somehow still be tied to my old PC somehow?

Sorry if this has been discussed before...I will admit, I didn't search too hard.

[FlameOn]

You can install steam on any number of PCs, but you can only be logged into your account on one PC at a time and by extension have active access to your games on one PC at a time IIRC

[silentsim]

Yes you can redownload games from your steam account on a new computer. (If purchased or redeemed on steam)

[wookster]

Perfect....thanks for the answer!

[photon]

Not all games support saving to the cloud though I don't think, so if you have save games and settings you want to keep you should still make the appropriate backups/copies. Each game is probably different too.

Also you can copy over most of the files and avoid having a massive download, which is significant for some.

[GoinAllTheWay]

It's exaclty this reason I love Steam. I remember when it first came out, everyone hated it. Reffered to it as "Steamin pile of s**t". First time I realized I could d/l all of my purchased games onto a new rig, I sang a whole different tune. It's come a long ways over the years.

[LockedOut]

You may have to worry about some games with DRM that only allow a few activations even though you can download it onto as many computers as you want. You may have lost one activation since you weren't able to deauthorize it (although some DRM don't allow it and have a hard fixed number of activations). I totally stay away from games like these unless their on steam sale for $5 then I don't care about the DRM too much.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay

It's exaclty this reason I love Steam. I remember when it first came out, everyone hated it. Reffered to it as "Steamin pile of s**t". First time I realized I could d/l all of my purchased games onto a new rig, I sang a whole different tune. It's come a long ways over the years.

Also, to download AND install all those games just a couple clicks each in the games library.

[wookster]

I guess I will find out tonight how much work its going to be to get those games back. Good news is I can get the files off the old HDD so that may help with some of it as well.