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First post, by lucascoelhofc

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Hello everyone, I have been trying to find a solution for this without success.

Basically, I have an old laptop that I wanted to use for gaming, so I thought I would install Steam and my games on it. Tried Left 4 Dead 1 & 2, Civ 5 and Orange Box, all retail discs, but to no avail. Once I get to the installation progress bar, the disc stop spinning, the bar it self shows up almost full but no other info on the box, and nothing happens. I waited hours and no file was created on the pc. I tried other laptops, other Windows OS - even the Steam version for XP - but the same thing happened.

Steam support simply told me to install from the download, but I have a slow connection and data cap. Orange Box alone is 50gb! More than that, I am baffled that they would just cut off all of their retail discs like that. Just goes to show what DRM can do retroactively.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Reply 1 of 10, by DosFreak

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The best solution is to install the game using a supported version of Steam on a supported OS with an Internet connection. For the unsupported OS it's possible the tools sisinstall or simpack v2.1 may work on XP, if not try them on the newer OS. For Orange box HL2 EP2, Portal and TF2 are broken on the disc so you'd need to use an older or newer build elsewhere for those games. Most orange box owners who want to use the CDs are lazy and use the Detonation release instead but it is an older build.

As far as a company supporting a product they still sell.... surely you can't be serious?

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Reply 4 of 10, by lucascoelhofc

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DosFreak wrote on 2022-10-29, 11:11:

The best solution is to install the game using a supported version of Steam on a supported OS with an Internet connection. For the unsupported OS it's possible the tools sisinstall or simpack v2.1 may work on XP, if not try them on the newer OS. For Orange box HL2 EP2, Portal and TF2 are broken on the disc so you'd need to use an older or newer build elsewhere for those games. Most orange box owners who want to use the CDs are lazy and use the Detonation release instead but it is an older build.

As far as a company supporting a product they still sell.... surely you can't be serious?

Hi friend,, sorry I am not as familiar with these alternatives. What is sisinstall and simpack? I googled them but could find anything specific. What is Detonation? I understand these games might be broken on disc, but I would like to have them install from retail and them update via steam, as it has always worked for me. Funnily enough, the retail version of Half-Life 2 (2004) works, as it is a different file format. I install it and them "restore" the local files from steam, which saves a lot of data from downloading. For these newer games, the benefit would be even more significant.

Reply 5 of 10, by lucascoelhofc

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Shagittarius wrote on 2022-10-29, 15:31:

I consider all my Steam games long term rentals. I have no illusions that someday they will cease to provide their service.

Yes, I bought these before we were all aware of the path the industry was taking. I haven't bought a Steam game in 10 years, and the few digital ones I did buy were from GOG. I see people applauding Valve and Steam, but it is basically DRM disguised as a store. They killed the second-hand and physical market for PC games. It is just sad.

Reply 6 of 10, by lucascoelhofc

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Azarien wrote on 2022-10-29, 14:27:

Do you have those games installed on another PC? If so, you should be able to copy the files and let Steam recognize them.

I thought about that, but unfortunately I don't have. Regardless, I am more pissed off at the fact that my discs don't work anymore.

Reply 8 of 10, by DosFreak

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lucascoelhofc wrote on 2022-10-29, 22:25:
DosFreak wrote on 2022-10-29, 11:11:

The best solution is to install the game using a supported version of Steam on a supported OS with an Internet connection. For the unsupported OS it's possible the tools sisinstall or simpack v2.1 may work on XP, if not try them on the newer OS. For Orange box HL2 EP2, Portal and TF2 are broken on the disc so you'd need to use an older or newer build elsewhere for those games. Most orange box owners who want to use the CDs are lazy and use the Detonation release instead but it is an older build.

As far as a company supporting a product they still sell.... surely you can't be serious?

Hi friend,, sorry I am not as familiar with these alternatives. What is sisinstall and simpack? I googled them but could find anything specific. What is Detonation? I understand these games might be broken on disc, but I would like to have them install from retail and them update via steam, as it has always worked for me. Funnily enough, the retail version of Half-Life 2 (2004) works, as it is a different file format. I install it and them "restore" the local files from steam, which saves a lot of data from downloading. For these newer games, the benefit would be even more significant.

sisinstall and simpack are tools created by the community to allow you to install the games from CD/DVD without Steam. Once installed you'd still have to "crack" the games if you didn't want to use steam except for those that don't need to be of course. If you wanted them updated then you could possibly copy the unpacked games to the steamcontent folder and then do a verify/repair in steam but more than likely the entire game would download again since it's likely that all or almost all of the files have been updated since then. Basically you're just making more work for yourself jumping through these hoops. Download from Steam, crack, copy to XP machine. Done. If don't want to crack then copy over to XP machine and do a verify/Repair and hope the game updates didn't break XP compatibility. (HL2 was broken for XP by valve back in 2019 v5377866 is the last working build) If you grab a previous version through the Steam GUI it should give you v2257546 that works on XP assuming it still has that build on offer. It did a year or so ago.

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Reply 9 of 10, by lucascoelhofc

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DosFreak wrote on 2022-10-29, 23:33:
lucascoelhofc wrote on 2022-10-29, 22:25:
DosFreak wrote on 2022-10-29, 11:11:

The best solution is to install the game using a supported version of Steam on a supported OS with an Internet connection. For the unsupported OS it's possible the tools sisinstall or simpack v2.1 may work on XP, if not try them on the newer OS. For Orange box HL2 EP2, Portal and TF2 are broken on the disc so you'd need to use an older or newer build elsewhere for those games. Most orange box owners who want to use the CDs are lazy and use the Detonation release instead but it is an older build.

As far as a company supporting a product they still sell.... surely you can't be serious?

Hi friend,, sorry I am not as familiar with these alternatives. What is sisinstall and simpack? I googled them but could find anything specific. What is Detonation? I understand these games might be broken on disc, but I would like to have them install from retail and them update via steam, as it has always worked for me. Funnily enough, the retail version of Half-Life 2 (2004) works, as it is a different file format. I install it and them "restore" the local files from steam, which saves a lot of data from downloading. For these newer games, the benefit would be even more significant.

sisinstall and simpack are tools created by the community to allow you to install the games from CD/DVD without Steam. Once installed you'd still have to "crack" the games if you didn't want to use steam except for those that don't need to be of course. If you wanted them updated then you could possibly copy the unpacked games to the steamcontent folder and then do a verify/repair in steam but more than likely the entire game would download again since it's likely that all or almost all of the files have been updated since then. Basically you're just making more work for yourself jumping through these hoops. Download from Steam, crack, copy to XP machine. Done. If don't want to crack then copy over to XP machine and do a verify/Repair and hope the game updates didn't break XP compatibility. (HL2 was broken for XP by valve back in 2019 v5377866 is the last working build) If you grab a previous version through the Steam GUI it should give you v2257546 that works on XP assuming it still has that build on offer. It did a year or so ago.

Thanks for clarifying. I don't necessarily need to run them on Windows XP, just tried on that OS to see if it would work with the latest Steam version that is supported, but with no luck. I was able to get a 2014 version of Steam working on Windows 7, and the installation process seemed like it would start, but it had problems connecting to the server or something like to that. So I guess on newer versions of Steam installation from disc is broken, on older versions you cannot access the server to begin the installation itself.

I tried finding this sisinstall and simpack tools online, but couldn't. Do you know where I could get them?

Reply 10 of 10, by DosFreak

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Unfortunately I cannot due to the rules of this forum. Best I could do was provide the names.

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Make your games work offline