Steam question
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Re: Steam question
Posted by Le Chief on Sat Jul 7th at 6:02am 2007


I need to re-format my laptop right, and my steam folder is about 20gig's and I really dont wish to re-download that all on dial-up, so I'm wondering, if I copied the steam folder onto some dvd's, reformat and then paste it back onto my computer, where I found it, will that work? Will I still have all my games and all I have to do is check for an update or something?





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Re: Steam question
Posted by RedWood on Sat Jul 7th at 6:33am 2007


their is a option to back up anything you have onto a cd. Just right click on the game name in tour "my games list". Just make sure you save your sdk stuff on your own.

your going to need a lot of cd's




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Re: Steam question
Posted by Riven on Sat Jul 7th at 6:56am 2007


Can't you connect them via a crossover ethernet cable?







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Re: Steam question
Posted by Crono on Sat Jul 7th at 7:31am 2007


Why are you formating your hard drive? (and what type of formatting. ex: through Windows?)


Blame it on Microsoft, God does.



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Re: Steam question
Posted by Le Chief on Sat Jul 7th at 9:07am 2007


I'm gonna do the format in bios, than gonna reinstall windows.





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Re: Steam question
Posted by Crono on Sat Jul 7th at 9:35am 2007


You're doing a low level format? Why? I mean, I wouldn't suggest wiping the disk anyway unless you're altering something drastic (even then there's ways around it). Whatever.

Just delete the partition instead of ensuring every little pit on the entire disc is zeroed out (you can do this during the windows install, if it's 2000 or newer). Even if you wanted to hide information from the FBI, that still wouldn't do it!



Blame it on Microsoft, God does.



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Re: Steam question
Posted by Forceflow on Sat Jul 7th at 9:53am 2007


You can move your whole steam folder, as long as you delete clientregistry.blob before starting steam again. I did that with my old computer too.


:: Forceflow.be :: Nuclear Dawn developer



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Re: Steam question
Posted by Le Chief on Sat Jul 7th at 11:20am 2007


Ahhh thankyou forceflow.

The reason I want to re-format is because I'm so stupid, I should have known, I downloaded a Key gen from the most dodegy'est site I've ever seen. Never download key generators folks, there all full of viruses.

So forceflow, I just copy the files back and steam will load and all the games will come up, if I do your method?







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Re: Steam question
Posted by omegaslayer on Sat Jul 7th at 5:14pm 2007


Theres a back up option in steam arron, I suggest you use it because it lowers the file size significantly enough to burn it on a CD/DVD, plus its just plain safer.

File->Backup games....

Follow the setup process to select DVD/CD options, so it know how many files to create.






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Re: Steam question
Posted by Cash Car Star on Sat Jul 7th at 6:28pm 2007


I know this isn't what you want to hear, but if you downloaded a Key Gen to the point where you feel a complete system swipe is necessary, wouldn't you want to redownload Steam and such from scratch, just to be absolutely 100% positive that there's nothing hiding in there? Kind of like how you burn all your sheets and get new ones if you find you have lice.




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Re: Steam question
Posted by Natus on Sat Jul 7th at 8:03pm 2007


Just out of curiousity, was that keygen from seriall?



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Re: Steam question
Posted by Le Chief on Sun Jul 8th at 2:26am 2007


I'm pretty sure that the steam '.gcf' files can't get infected from viruses. I hear that only applications like '.exe' can get infected, is this true?

Anyway, this virus seems (or was) very destructive. The settings in hammer are all scrwed up, it keeps re-setting the defults for my applications and windows settings, lags up the whole computer and after about 1 hour I have to restart because the thing consumes all my ram and every now and then some programs will just stop responding.

But I have re-formatted and steam is up, thankyou so much for the help guys.

I dont remember where it was from, but it was from some dodgey website with the word 'serial' in it. The keygen was for milkshape 3d. I'm trying to crack it. 3DS max is way to hard for me and I cant find a plugin for 9.0.







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Re: Steam question
Posted by Crono on Sun Jul 8th at 4:21am 2007


Anything can be infected with a virus. Anything stored as a binary sequence, anyway.


Blame it on Microsoft, God does.



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Re: Steam question
Posted by Beetle on Sun Jul 8th at 4:39am 2007


can't you try the customary stuff, like starting in safe mode and trying to delete it from there?




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Re: Steam question
Posted by Cash Car Star on Sun Jul 8th at 5:01am 2007


? quote:
Anything can be infected with a virus. Anything stored as a binary sequence, anyway.
I know I'm going to sound ignorant, but what else is there on a computer? Things you've printed off?




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Re: Steam question
Posted by Gorbachev on Sun Jul 8th at 5:14am 2007


? quote:

? quote:
Anything can be infected with a virus. Anything stored as a
binary sequence, anyway.
I know I'm going to sound ignorant, but
what else is there on a computer? Things you've printed off?


Duh, magic.




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Re: Steam question
Posted by Crono on Sun Jul 8th at 5:37am 2007


Yeah, see?

Quantum energy?

There are computers that don't store information in binary. (Like all the computers before binary was put to use). It was really a cover my bases sort of remark, because there are computers in existence that use a different system. However, that isn't to say viruses couldn't be written for them, it's just, if the system can't read you malicious code how ever will it execute it?



Blame it on Microsoft, God does.



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Re: Steam question
Posted by Le Chief on Sun Jul 8th at 6:01am 2007


@ Beetle : Well the virus was spread to many files, but there was a file called mgrs.exe that kept attempting to acces the internet. Whenever I deleted it in safe mode, it would just come back on the next restart. I had pop ups to, there real hard to get rid of.

@ Crono : But dosen't the virus have to execute itself. Does this mean that, say jpegs can get viruses?







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Re: Steam question
Posted by Crono on Sun Jul 8th at 6:19am 2007


Of course a virus can be embedded into a jpeg file.

All this means is that some piece of binary (compiled code, most likely written in asm for a very general platform, say IA-32 architecture processors), is written in with the file ... pretty much anywhere. It doesn't need to be explicitly executed, all that needs to happen is the binary data be loaded into memory then it will be executed at some point.

So, here's a quick lesson, just because you're learning some programming stuff now, if you accept input ... from anywhere (for example, reading in data) ... you need to check it. If you don't, people can write whatever they like there. A very common type of attack on web-pages running something like PHP is when you fill up a text box as far as the PHP code will read for its own purposes, then you fill in platform specific asm code to do whatever. When the PHP code accepts to input it will take ALL of the entered data and put it in memory and then it will be executed. The prevention for this is very simple, you check the data, make sure more than what you want is ignored and you have a set of characteristics for your input.

Of course, you should realize that most all viruses that are floating around are not that smart. They are distributed in an executable format because that's the form the people distributing it got it in. Most people who spread viruses and spam know nothing of the inner workings. They download rootkits and various other pre-made tools and use them through a GUI.

If they knew what they were doing, they could do tremendous amounts of damage to your computer. And some of the hacks and viruses out there are VERY sneaky and powerful. For instance, some attach themselves to the system kernel and then get written out and they're so close to hardware that anti-virus can't actually get access to see it. Intel, in conjunction with some independent contracts (from instructors at my university no less) is developing hardware that sits at that low level to specifically check for this. Apparently, there's lots of tools that allow you to cheat in MMO games by using that technique and lots of people are losing money because of it.
A couple terms ago I was seeking an adviser to do an independent study project under and one that I spoke to is working on this and he tried to get me to ditch my own project to work on this. He was basically trying to get me to do his research which really pissed me off.

I found someone else and am doing a pretty cool project right now. Hopefully it works. If it does, even to the degree I'm planning, it'll be an advancement in cooperative AI agents in games (think RTS). Right now they're so stupid it hurts. Current RTS Agents: "Get resource, build stuff, guard the big hole in the front of the base ... ignore the giant chasm in the back that can be cleared by any sort of plane ... oh I lost." Pathetic, they're almost as intelligent as a single worker bee ... almost.



Blame it on Microsoft, God does.



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Re: Steam question
Posted by Le Chief on Sun Jul 8th at 6:56am 2007


Can you actually like download a virus, safely store it on your computer and give it to people you hate? I dont plan on doing this, but is there some low life on the interwebs getting a kick out of disturbing viruses safely, allowing people download then and unleash them on other peopels computers. I can see how its funny, but still, we could spend so much time on developing better programs and stuff, but theres always that 'security' factor that people have to focus on.








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