hl2goty_steamfree software clearancebin_unsorted Valve 2005-09-30 <div><u><b>Half-Life 2: Game of the Year Edition (PC DVD-ROM 5-Disc Box Set)</b></u></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>Works without installing Steam, intended for Windows XP and Vista<br /></b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b></b><i>Also includes Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, Half-Life: Source, and Counter-Strike: Source</i><br /></div><div><br /></div><u>Background</u>:<br /><br />Half-Life 2 is compatible with Windows XP and Vista, but all versions of the game (even hard copies) require Steam before they will run. This is a problem because Steam no longer supports XP or Vista. People who purchased the game legitimately and want to play it on these operating systems are no longer able to do so through no fault of their own. That doesn't seem fair.<br /><br />I manually extracted all the game files using WinRAR and GCFScape to skip installing Steam, then dropped in an emulated Steam.dll (courtesy of RevEmu) to trick the game into starting.<br /><br />Tested on Windows XP, Vista, and 10. Singleplayer modes seem to work fine, but I was not able to connect to online servers since they rely on Steam. There may be a workaround for this which I am not aware of.<br /><br /><u>Setup</u>:<br /><br />1. Download Valve.zip (2.9 GB compressed / 5 GB uncompressed).<br /><br />2. Extract it and place the Valve folder inside Program Files.<br /><br />3. In the Valve folder, there are four shortcuts that will launch the games. To launch a certain game, click its respective shortcut.<br /><br /><div>(You can move the shortcuts to your Desktop or wherever is most convenient. They should work as long as the Valve folder is inside Program Files.)</div><br /><u>Notes</u>:<br /><div><br /></div><div>- If you place the Valve folder in a different folder, you will need to edit the shortcuts' Properties to point them to the correct location.<br /><br />- If the app icons do not display correctly, you can reapply them manually. They are located in the Half-Life 2 folder.</div><div><br /></div>- "Node Graph out of Date. Rebuilding..." is normal and will only appear the first time each map is loaded.<br /><br />- You may need to tweak the graphics settings in Options depending on your PC's hardware. Each game has its own settings.<br /><br />- To uninstall the games, delete the Half-Life 2 folder which contains all the game files. (There is a file called uninstall_hl2.exe, but it doesn't seem to do anything. I guess Steam would've used it somehow.)<br /><br /><div>- Steam is also DRM, so this version of the game doesn't require a CD Key. Don't play it unless you own a legit copy of Half-Life 2. Otherwise that would be piracy.</div> eng Internet Archive HTML5 Uploader 1.6.4 half-life 2 half-life half-life 2 deathmatch counter-strike source steam game of the year windows xp windows vista windows johncosta500@gmail.com 2021-09-08 22:14:13 2021-09-08 22:14:13 [curator]validator@archive.org[/curator][date]20210908221547[/date][comment]checked for malware[/comment] 2005 clearancebin