Tutorial: How to have both upgraded and downgraded Hogwarts Legacy game versions at the same time! β¨
Hi! I want to share a way to have both upgraded and downgraded Hogwarts Legacy game versions at the same time. I think most people have moved to upgraded at this point but downgraded runs better and the cloning isnt silly.
Happy to help with any questions, it looks a bit daunting but it's really easy I promise!
@infinitivesky has also made a tutorial for this using a different method so check hers out too if you're interested.
The goal is to make a portable (2nd) Steam. So basically what we are doing is tricking your main Steam into thinking it's the only one by using a fake AppData folder. Your main Steam can't see that there's a 2nd Steam in the AppData folder, so this keeps your saves and game versions separate. Two steams, same steam account, separate games!
1. Go anywhere, make a folder, call it PortableSteam. Make a folder in there called Steam and another one called Data.
2. Go to your main steam directory, copy the steam.exe and paste it into the Steam folder in PortableSteam folder.
3. In your main steam directory (where you got the steam.exe from), hit ctrl f, type "ssfn", copy and paste those files (it should be two, show hidden folders one might be hidden), paste those into the Steam folder in PortableSteam.
4. Run the steam.exe from inside the PortableSteam, it'll populate all of the files.
5. Now open a texteditor blank file (I used notepad), copy paste all of this below into it. βΌοΈ It has to be all of it, this is important. If you do not put everything in the text file this wont work. Make sure the directory (mine says H below for example) matches where your PortableSteam folder is. Put it at the root if you can.
@echo off
:: 1. Define your isolated root directory
set "PORTABLE_DIR=H:\PortableSteam\Data"
:: 2. Build the folder structure silently if it doesn't exist
if not exist "%PORTABLE_DIR%\AppData\Roaming" mkdir "%PORTABLE_DIR%\AppData\Roaming"
if not exist "%PORTABLE_DIR%\AppData\Local" mkdir "%PORTABLE_DIR%\AppData\Local"
if not exist "%PORTABLE_DIR%\Documents" mkdir "%PORTABLE_DIR%\Documents"
:: 3. Hijack the env variables for this session only
set "APPDATA=%PORTABLE_DIR%\AppData\Roaming"
set "LOCALAPPDATA=%PORTABLE_DIR%\AppData\Local"
set "USERPROFILE=%PORTABLE_DIR%"
set "HOMEDRIVE=H:"
set "HOMEPATH=\PortableSteam\Data"
:: 4. Launch the portable instance of Steam
start "" "H:\PortableSteam\Steam\Steam.exe"
6. Then in your text editor, go to file, hit save as, put LaunchPortableSteam.bat as the name and make sure the file type is set to all files when saving. After saving, it should look like a little window with gears.
7. From there you should be able to click that and run it and it should populate the data folder you made in PortableSteam. You should be able to go in there and see a bunch of files. If you don't, it didn't sync. You may need to try running a game to have it put files in there. Don't test with HL, download and use another game. I tested with left 4 dead.
8. βΌοΈ Make sure you turn off all cloud settings for both steams before downloading HL! It turned mine on with my main steam (where I keep downgrade) so make sure you turn that off, I turned it off and it didn't force an update. Once you see files in the data folder you made in PortableSteam, you should be able to open your second steam and download Hogwarts Legacy for upgraded, in my case. Or you may download it and downgrade it the same way we downgraded the game before.
βΌοΈ IMPORTANT: Do not launch both steams at the same time! Always hit exit steam in the tray/task manager before swapping steams. I did a custom red steam icon on my second steam and did a desktop shortcut with it so I don't get confused.
And you're done! Again I'm very happy to help with any questions so if you are confused or need to reach out feel free! Have fun π
