Deleting Downloaded Games When Reinstalling Windows

[boxpressed]

I have a Windows 10 computer with a mechanical HDD that I'd like to upgrade to an SSD. I think I'm going to just install Windows fresh rather than try to migrate. Right now, all I have on this mechanical HDD is games from Steam, Epic, and Ubi. Although I'm not looking forward to redownloading these games, I'm more concerned that I won't be able to download them again with the new HDD.

 

Is there any kind of deactivation process I have to undertake before reformatting this mechanical drive (will use in another build)? Or are we allowed to download as often as we like as long as only one download is "active" at a time? Thanks for any advice.

[Agamon]

You'll have no issues at all.  I've got both a desktop and laptop and I'm able to dl any games on either at the same time. It's the account that matters, not the device.

[boxpressed]

55 minutes ago, Agamon said:

You'll have no issues at all.  I've got both a desktop and laptop and I'm able to dl any games on either at the same time. It's the account that matters, not the device.

Thank you. I was just recalling apps like iTunes that allowed you to install on so many devices, so it was a good practice to deauthorize computers before you wiped the HDD.

[DragonGrafx-16]

If it's a desktop I'd keep the old hard drive and use it as a secondary drive, if it's a laptop then you can't do this (obviously). 

[HammR25]

Steam has a download queue and will take care of that automatically if you tell it you want to install a bunch of games at once.  I assume uPlay and Epic are the same.

[Austin]

Yeah, as long as you remember your account credentials, you just download the launchers again and they'll let you re-download your games without an issue.

[boxpressed]

Thanks, everyone. I ended up deleting all the games but kept the client apps, freeing up about 400GB of space. Using Macrium, I was then able to clone the mechanical HDD (1TB) to a 500GB Intel SSD that I like a lot. It's free and fairly easy once you figure out how to clone to a smaller drive. I will probably use the mechanical HDD as a secondary drive for redownloading some of those games. 

[wierd_w]

Here is what I would do:

 

For each game, start the download, pause it, then terminate steam. Copy the game's data folder from the old drive to the new steam folder. Restart steam, and then check integrity.

 

This will cut your download time from possibly days, to just an hour or so.

[boxpressed]

7 hours ago, wierd_w said:

Here is what I would do:

 

For each game, start the download, pause it, then terminate steam. Copy the game's data folder from the old drive to the new steam folder. Restart steam, and then check integrity.

 

This will cut your download time from possibly days, to just an hour or so.

Good idea, but I already deleted all the games using the client apps in order to get a relatively clean image to clone to the new drive. It turns out that I don't miss them -- I wasn't really playing any of those games anyway. I might reinstall a couple like Doom 2016 and GTA V.