Game Install Taking Forever: How to Speed it up

Fixing your hard drive should do the job here

5 min. read

Updated onSeptember 9, 2024

updated onSeptember 9, 2024

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The sheer size of modern games can certainly prolong theinstallationprocess. But nonetheless, we can conclude that even Gears of War 4, which is enormous in size and has an abundance of DLCs, will eventuallyinstallafter a few hours or so.

But what to do when the gameinstallis so long that you’re not even sure if the progress bar is advancing forward? This is especially common when Steam is converting existing game installations.

There are many possible reasons for this, and we made sure to cover them in this article. Irrespective of the cause, you can fix it with the solutions in this guide.

How can I fix my game if it taking forever to install?

1. Quit and try again

A simple but nonetheless viable step when something like this or arunning install scriptoccurs, especially if you’reinstallingdigital copies with theSteamclient or its peers, is to ensure you have enough storage space.Free up some space, if necessary.

Contemporary games come with many additional patches and updates that can sometimes take up to 10, 20, or more gigabytes.

Basically, for the installation process to finish completely, occasionally, you’ll need toinstallavailable updates, too. And that will additionally prolong theinstallationprocess.

Therefore, make sure to stop theinstallationprocess, clean everything, check all included variables (storage space, permissions, etc.), and start from scratch. Furthermore, if there’s a way, you can start the setup directly and avoid theSteam/Battle.net/Origin client.

2. Run the installer in compatibility mode with administrative permission

While we’re at it, it’s worth mentioning that sometimes the incompatibility with the current system version can stall or even prevent the installer from completing theinstallation. These errors can manifest in different ways like thelibvorbisfile.dll not found.

To avoid this, we advise you to run the game in the compatibility mode to an initially predicted system version.

If your game is older, make sure to run it in compatibility mode for Windows 7. Furthermore, the installer needs administrative permission to make changes to your system.

3. Restart Steam and try again

While digital distribution spurs access to a certain game, it also has issues. More than a few users found theSteam clientculpable for more than slowinstallation.

In order to address this, it’s best to restartSteamand move from there. Additionally, you can run the dedicated command in the Run elevated command line. This command will restoreSteamto default values, and it’s a good way to avoid reinstallation.

We explainedhow to run the steam flushconfig command, in our detailed article.

4. Defragment the HDD and check its health

The previous steps should have dealt with the lesser evils, but we have finally reached the worst-case scenario: the HDD failure.

The first symptom of HDD health issues or corruption is substantially decreased reading speeds. Thus, file installation or copying can take more time than usual.

Once your HDD reaches this stadium, it’s too late to fix it most of the time. However, maybe the fragmentation levels are too high, or there are some repairable errors. To address these, you can either turn to a third-party tool or use the built-in system tools.

If, after this, you’re still stuck with the same old overlonginstallation, we advise you to take a more thorough approach. You can do so by running the Check Disk command in order to confirm the integrity of thedisk.

If, even after that, you’re stuck with the same issue, you can go further by using theHDD troubleshooting toolsor repair the HDD altogether.

That should do it. If you have additional solutions or questions about the ones we presented above, feel free to tell us in the comments section below.

Game Install Taking Forever: How to Speed it up#

How can I fix my game if it taking forever to install?#

1. Quit and try again#

2. Run the installer in compatibility mode with administrative permission#

3. Restart Steam and try again#

4. Defragment the HDD and check its health#