Liberation complete; beautiful and how it was meant to be.

(it's too bad the real world doesn't have work-arounds like this one for Steam... otherwise the citizens of Hong Kong could install ChinaEmu and use the dummy version of puppet_gov.dll to carry on their way 😢 )

According to this it works without Steam, as it was installed: https://steam.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games
And yes, i closed Steam and launched hl2.exe and it works just without Steam.

Builds after v5135 do not require steam but builds before do. Using just "-game xxx" is all you need for all the various HL2 games after v5135.

does this also work for GoldSrc Half Life?

For the HL1 steam versions before v4554 you need the following from revemu copied to where hl.exe is located:
rev.ini
steam.dll
steamclient.dll

As well as the switch -steam -game xxx

The above works on 9x with Kernelex with v4554 for the following combined into one folder blueshift, conditionzero, counterstrike, dayofdefeat, deathmatch, halflife, Opfor, TFC

Some versions of revemu may require the -appid switch as well.

For builds after v4554 SmartSteamEmu or Goldberg work. If using Goldberg on Windows XP then you'll need to modify it's steamapi.dll to point to ws2_32.dll renamed to ws2_xp.dll from xompie since Goldberg doesn't work on XP.

All,
Just wondering if any of you have come across the "Unable to load filesystem_stdio.dll" ? I have an original 2004 HL2 install (not the GOTY edition) and i have followed the directions from Maximum however i now get the missing filesystem_stdio.dll

Notes
The above issue was also present before steps 4 and 5 ie
4. Download and unpack the latest version of RevEmu
5. Copy Steam.dll from the garysmod subdirectory of RevEmu to your Half-Life 2 root directory.

My version of RevEmu is old, the one that i could find is from 2014, however it does have the garysmod subdirectory on it.

This is all on Vista 32bit.

Thx in advance.

Interesting thing, but the retail release of HL2 does not look so good as the prerelease demo.
I remember the reflecting roof, that looked very beautifull in the pre-release-demo.

I want to say the "Unable to load filesystem_stdio.dll" messages means that the game is trying to run the game from a GCF file but it's missing or that other files are missing I don't bother with running the games with the GCF files, just extract all the files from the GCF and be done with it.

Try adding the -steam switch and it should tell you what GCF it is trying to access.
If a GCF is missing then if you are using steamemu then verify that the GCF is enabled in the .ini and that the GCF is in the correct location.

How do you "just" extract the GCF contents? They were encrypted last time I checked. Is this a quirk of the GOTY edition? In that case, I should get my hands on it.

A question, can I overwrite the gcf files when extracting the cab file? I extract the first cab file, but in the second there are files with the same name, so I extracted it in separate folders, and I have the impression that I increased the work. In the first cab I saw that it works, I started the game.

It's good and all, but why not just use the Vengeance crack or something? It's just crippling the DRM either way and using a crack is just easier.

nice guide. I have a huge collection of old games on Steam I was willing to play on Windows XP - thanks to Valve I cannot do that anymore. I have saved an old copy of my Steam client, which works to launch some games, but I cannot update the library at all.

I can't imagine why Valve killed the Steam XP client, even for offline access. Never got around to using steam emulators, I am concerned about bans.

mihai wrote on 2021-03-21, 14:03:

I can't imagine why Valve killed the Steam XP client, even for offline access.

Probably security reasons. It'd be great though if they made a legacy client which could do nothing more than install and run games through something like family sharing.

Steam isn't needed for Windows XP except if you want to download the games on XP. If you want to play the games that require Steam on Windows XP then use Steam emulators, steamless or cracks.

The way the steam emulators work is by implementing the Steam functionality seperate of Steam so valve wouldn't be able to ban someone who used those since there is no connection to Steam.
I supposed if Valve performed an inventory and banned anyone who had a Steam emulator on their hard drive then that may be something but the bad press from that wouldn't be worth it.

There are some utilities people use that work while Steam is loaded to unlock DLC for games that haven't been cracked or for multiplayer and those potentially could result in bans but there's really no sense in using those since the steam emulators work for multiplayer (without steam) among those who use them and the steam emulators also unlock DLC as well.

I recently installed on my WinXP machine the DVD version of Half-Life 2, along with Counterstrike and Half-life Source. All games work fine, and I did not even had to run Steam once, much less log into it. It tried to update to latest verision on reboot, but of course it failed. Games still work fine, though.

It turns out that you don't even need a Steam emulator. You can trick Steam into launching these old copies. Zero custom files needed.
The details vary depending on the retail version. The GOTY release doesn't need decryption and can be launched directly from hl2.exe when placed in the correct Steam folder. Otherwise, you can replace the real Half-Life 2 installation and launch it as normal. I did this using the build from October 2004.
Of course, this still leaves Windows XP behind thanks to Valve's negligence.

silikone wrote on 2021-12-31, 16:37:

It turns out that you don't even need a Steam emulator. You can trick Steam into launching these old copies. Zero custom files needed.
The details vary depending on the retail version. The GOTY release doesn't need decryption and can be launched directly from hl2.exe when placed in the correct Steam folder. Otherwise, you can replace the real Half-Life 2 installation and launch it as normal. I did this using the build from October 2004.
Of course, this still leaves Windows XP behind thanks to Valve's negligence.

How did you manage to make the 2004 version work, can you explain in detail? I have it installed but I have never had success.

mihai wrote:

but I cannot update the library at all

Importing appmanifest file to Steam library folder, with optional editing, should work fine.

gundstaff wrote on 2022-01-02, 04:24:

silikone wrote on 2021-12-31, 16:37:

It turns out that you don't even need a Steam emulator. You can trick Steam into launching these old copies. Zero custom files needed.
The details vary depending on the retail version. The GOTY release doesn't need decryption and can be launched directly from hl2.exe when placed in the correct Steam folder. Otherwise, you can replace the real Half-Life 2 installation and launch it as normal. I did this using the build from October 2004.
Of course, this still leaves Windows XP behind thanks to Valve's negligence.

How did you manage to make the 2004 version work, can you explain in detail? I have it installed but I have never had success.

I originally bought HL2 on Steam, and to play it on my current XP build, had to use Half-Life 2: Collector's Edition which is available on REMOVED. It is unfortunate that Steam no longer works on XP.