Some things that Steam COULD bring to the table

[Les]

Originally Posted by Blackdog_kt

1) Let's say i want to rollback a patch, so i reinstall the game and start patching. Can i tell steam to stop at a certain patch/version or does it automatically apply the latest one?
2) If i have the patch package files already on my disk, can i point steam to them or will it ignore their existence and download the whole thing again?

1. When you re-install it will patch you up to the latest version in one hit, so you won't be able to stop it at a certain patch version. It may be adding the patches one by one but you won't know where it's up to at any given point during the process and it won't let you interrupt the process anyway.

And when I say re-install, I mean one of three things - a) re-installing off a retail disk. b) re-installing a prior version of the game that you have previously copied elsewhere using Steams built-in back-up facility. c) re-installing by re-downloading the game directly from Steam. As a side point, Steam has an automated procedure for installing using a copy of the game you've saved using it's game back-up feature, you don't have to manually re-insert the files you've copied back into the Steam program's folder structure.

2. Yes, if you've backed up a previous version of the game (it's not a separate patch package as such but a complete version of the game), you can uninstall the current version and re-install the previous version, and no it won't get automatically updated if you don't want it to.

You make sure it doesn't get updated by selecting 'Do not automatically update' in one of the drop down menus in the 'Properties' section of your game. If you always run Steam in off-line mode, you don't have to (and can't) select 'Do not automatically update' as it's not going to do it anyway.