Steam deleting read-only files/folders

[rommie]

This problem is a little complex, so please bear with me.

I have two steam accounts, one with a copy of a game from one region, the other account with a copy of the same game, but for another region. Both accounts have other games on them with a LOT of DLC that would be way too expensive to buy again.

What's happening is I log out of account 1, and account 2 goes "oh, the install of that game seems to be damaged, I have to download it all over again" (even restoring from a steam backup takes ages).

When I go onto account 2, it DELETES all the english language files made by the game on account 1, even though they're marked as read only! And completely screws up the install, wants to download the game again, so when I need to use account 1... well, the same thing happens that I mentioned first.

I've tried the steam beta that lets you set different download locations, the game doesn't support it.

I've tried an 3rd-party app that moves steam games to a network drive, thought I could disconnect the network drive when one of the accounts wants to screw up the install... didn't work.

How can I stop steam from overwriting and deleting files even though they're all marked as read-only? I know this would cause an error when one of the accounts tries to do something with that game... but keep in mind that that's fine, I don't need it to work on both accounts, only one.

 

[medo145]

Would it work if you had 2 steam installs and then have 2 shortcuts to the different steam executables?

 

[rommie]

Would it work if you had 2 steam installs and then have 2 shortcuts to the different steam executables?

Yes, only Steam doesn't allow two different installs.

 

[medo145]

I was under the impression that you can just copy the steam folder and then when you run the new steam.exe, it will update the registry to look to that folder.

 

[Automata]

This solution isn't "clean", but you could rename the steamapps folder. You could probably do this with a batch file, a simple program, or AutoHotKey pretty easily. This should keep the folders separate.

 

[rommie]

This solution isn't "clean", but you could rename the steamapps folder. You could probably do this with a batch file, a simple program, or AutoHotKey pretty easily. This should keep the folders separate.

I'm not sure I understand, the steamapps folder contains all the games, but not the steam exe itself. How would this help me run two copies of steam?

 

[medo145]

you wouldn't run 2 copies of steam, you would run the same version. Before running the account from the different region, you would replace/rename the steamapps folder with the one from the appropriate region.

 

[petteyg359]

You might try two separate Windows accounts. Install Steam per-user, in the user's profile folder, then there's nothing for it to delete.