Steam – How to the Steam first time setup be run without starting the game directly afterwards

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Since the incredibly fascinating (re-)installation of some DirectX and VC-Redistributable files takes a bit longer than I'm willing to stare at my screen, I'd like to be able to do something else, e.g. watch youtube. But of course when the first time setup is done, the new game starts, usually directly with an intro which now ends up being mixed with some video I've just been watching or whatever.

Can the first time setup be started in such a way that the game that requires it is not automatically started after said setup?

Best Answer

It's possible, but it's not pretty.

The first-run tasks are described in a file called installscript.vdf (or runasadmin.vdf) inside the game's folder, in steamapps somewhere. This script file is interpreted by SteamService.exe. A typical call would look like this (example here: Jamestown):

"C:\Program Files\Steam\bin\SteamService.exe" /installscript "C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\jamestown\installscript.vdf" 94200

As I said, it's not pretty, and it would require you to locate the installation script and look up the game's app ID (in this example, it's 94200). The app ID is not optional, and the Steam service will crash if it's omitted.

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