SDC should check to see if the game already exists before downloading.

Without scanning your entire hard drive, which would be a time consuming task and slow to boot, the only way SDC or any program can tell if something's already installed is based on your system registry. Since you're wiping Windows, your registry gets wiped out too. The easiest, fastest way to work around this issue would be to simply archive your games in SDC before you nuke your OS. That way when you reinstall from the archive, you'll be good to go.

I would never want it to scan my harddrive
But I actually SAID how it can be done without scanning my harddrive...
Check only the directory into which I INSTALL.

For example:
If I tell it to install GalCiv2 into "D:\Games\GalCiv2" It could look in there and see that the entire game is already there, and all it needs is the registry entries... thats 1.08GB that I wouldn't have to redownload.

In fact, I told it to autmatically install all games to "D:\Games\" So it could just check there in the RESPECTIVE directories of my PURCHASED items.

Example:
I reformat, I install SDC, I tell it to autoinstall games to "D:\Games\".
It knows I own galciv2, etherlords 2, gish, etc.
When I click install for galciv2 it would install into "D:\Games\GalCiv2", thus, check it first and save a gig of downloading.
When I click install for Gish it will install into "D:\Games\Gish".
When I click install for Etherlords 2... "D:\Games\Etherlords 2"...

You get the pattern here.
This would be the same code to allow repair of installations. Where every file is checked for a hash, and those with the wrong hash or missing files could be redownloaded. Or maybe a simpler method could be made (like creating a SDC.txt file indication the version of it at root, which would tell SDC what's there.)


As for the archiving:
1. It doubles the spare required.
2. It requires you to plan it ahead.
3. It takes A LOT of time.

bump... no response?

I just upgraded to vista from XP64bit and again I have to redownload everything, even though I still have ALL the files on my "D:\Games" directory. (into which I am reinstalling the games).

It will save me alot of bandwidth and you alot of time to check the installation directory for an existing installation first.
And no, archiving is not practical. It takes too much time and too much space.

I've passed this thread onto the developer to look at for the next major version of SDC due out later this year. In the meantime, archiving is all we plan to support.

So I recently formatted... (windows broke)

I reinstalled steam... when I selected "install" for my games game it checked the target directory and found it already had an existing installation.. so it repaired the registry entries and that was it. 6 seconds procedure.

I reinstalled SDC, I changed the install dir to D:\Games and told it to install all my games, it proceeded to download each of them and install them (overwriting files) into the existing directories... taking an awful lot of time and YOUR bandwidth (you pay for it after all).
Disciples 2, etherlords 2, galciv2 (and all expansions), gish, gods, hacker, mornings wrath and sins... The amount of wasted bandwidth is staggering. (considering how many other people probably have to go through the same).

Archiving is impractical because it makes game take almost twice the space... you should really consider implementing this as it will save you money on bandwidth.

SDC is being discontinued. I think this may be something Impulse (SDC's replacement) can do.