How do I copy Steam game files from another PC while the game's still downloading?
Solution 1:
To copy Steam game files from another computer to save you having to download the full game, simply do the following;
- Cancel the download on your machine and delete local files for the game
- Close Steam on your computer
- Copy the whole folder Borderlands 2 from your brother's PC into
Steam\SteamApps\common - Delete the .exe since every user has it's own .exe if Steam DRM is used (what BL2 in fact does)
- Tell Steam to download Borderlands 2 and it will discover the existing files
- Verify files to get your own .exe and make sure nothing is corrupted
Solution 2:
Just a quick thing, before you restart Steam after copying the files, you MAY wish to copy the relevant Appmanifest_xxxx.acf file too, where the x's are a number specific to each product on Steam. to find out WHICH appmanifest file is the one for the game you're using, visit the game's page on Steampowered.com and you'll notice the URL has a number as the last part of it.
For example, Dark Souls 2's page is http://store.steampowered.com/app/236430/ ... that 236430 will correspond to a file in steam/steamapps/ called "Appmanifest_236430.acf" . Copy that into the same directory on YOUR PC, so for example D:/games/Steam/Steamapps/ or whatever your steam location is. It goes in Steamapps, NOT in steamapps/common and NOT in the same directory for the game either. That is important.
THEN you should be able to open steam, tell it to download, then verify the installation. and you should be hunky-dory.