Are previously downloaded Steam games transferable from Windows to Linux? (reddthat.com)

submitted 1 year ago by lightnsfw@reddthat.com to c/linux_gaming@lemmy.ml

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I've backed up many of the Steam games I had installed in Windows. Am I able to use these on Linux or do I need to re-download them?

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[-] muhyb@programming.dev 12 points 1 year ago

It is possible that you didn't have problems but it has a huge potential for that. WINE uses Linux symlinks and that's the main reason why it's not a good idea using NTFS for that, since when you boot Windows it'll correct those files because Windows and Linux have different case-sensitivity. Basically Windows will corrupt those files and you will have problems regarding that. If you don't boot into Windows you probably won't have problems though. On the other hand if you don't boot into Windows, why use NTFS. :)

[-] hackris@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

Yep, I imaged my friend's game drive to test this out (they have many games) and sure enough, some didn't work after booting into Windows and later launching them with WINE. Thanks for the clarification :)

[-] muhyb@programming.dev 1 points 1 year ago

No problem! I experienced the very same thing when I was still dual-booting so I know it well. :) Other than media disk, it doesn't worth sharing disks between Linux and Windows. And Windows still can cause problems there.

this post was submitted on 23 Sep 2023

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