[otieatkins]

Hi Everyone, Hope all is well...
I have bought and downloaded games (really, all legal). They do not come with a disk so if something happens to your game, you have to go and download it again. Because I may not be able to have internet connection for awhile< I would not be able to download my games if something happened to them.
So, my questions are:
1). Can I make a cd/dvd from my game folder so I can always get my game back if I need to?
2). What software would I use to do this (hopefully something free?)?
3). How would I reinstall it from the cd/dvd that I created?

Thank you so much, Dianne

[Advertisements]

Download those games again and put them all in a folder and then burn that folder to a CD/DVD.
And add your registration details, those are probably in an email they sent you when you bought them.

Burning your games folder, assuming that is where you installed them, is very likely not going to work because they need to be reinstalled. The information in the registry would be missing if you copied that folder to a freshly reinstalled windows drive.
Reinstalling them would be exactly the same as the first time around, just double click the downloaded file.

Edited by xmephistox, 09 June 2010 - 10:21 PM.

[xmephistox]

Download those games again and put them all in a folder and then burn that folder to a CD/DVD.
And add your registration details, those are probably in an email they sent you when you bought them.

Burning your games folder, assuming that is where you installed them, is very likely not going to work because they need to be reinstalled. The information in the registry would be missing if you copied that folder to a freshly reinstalled windows drive.
Reinstalling them would be exactly the same as the first time around, just double click the downloaded file.

Edited by xmephistox, 09 June 2010 - 10:21 PM.

[otieatkins]

Hi xmephistox,
Thank you for replying so quickly! I don't think that will work because they don't send an email with registration details - that's all done in the background while being installed.
That's the reason I am thinking that I have to capture the "something?" that will put it right back to my HD without my ever having to go on line. If it helps any, the games are from Gamehouse and BigFish. If you would like to see how it works, go to one of those sites and download a "demo". Although they only last for 60 minutes, it will show you how it does everything from behind the scenes. You just play.
I hope I am not totally confusing you, I don't have great computer lingo...
And, please know that I truly appreciate your interest and help in/with my problem.
Dianne

[dsenette]

the only way to make a copy of what you already have installed would be to make an image of your computer in it's current state. there are a lot of software options out there for this (norton ghost, acronis true image, drive image xml)....what you would end up doing is making an exact clone of your hard drive in it's current state. you'd save that cloned image out to some kind of external media (probably an external hard drive given the probable size of the image) then if something messes up you just restore that image to the PC and it would put everything on the computer back to the state it was in when you cloned it.

the only other way to just save the games is to re-download the installer files and save those somewhere (as was previously suggested)

[otieatkins]

Thanks so much everyone for your help. I'm going to go with the disk image and hope I do it correctly so it restores correctly!!

[123Runner]

Thanks so much everyone for your help. I'm going to go with the disk image and hope I do it correctly so it restores correctly!!

Thats a lot to go through to save games.

On another note....You are correct that the game installer wants access to Gamehouse.com to complete the install. (I just tried)
So your only option is a image of the drive or clone the entire drive to another hard drive and just swap drives.