Installing Orange Box with no Internet Connection

[davarian]

Blah, pain in the @$$

I bought the orange box when it first game out. I am just now trying to play it though, and I was super pumped to get through half life 2 and portal. I live somewhere where no Internet is available. I tried to install the orange box, but Internet is required....guess I missed it on the box.

So, I drove about 30 minutes to a friend's house and am now on the Internet to post this. Sure, I can haul my computer here, but that's not the point -> I want to be able to play this game and install / uninstall it anytime I like without having to take my PC random places.

Is there any sort of steam emulation I can download in order to do this, to fake the game into installing? As I said, I bought it, so I just need to "Hack" this somehow. I did all sorts of searches, and either found nothing or found old emulators (from like 2008) that doesn't list working with the orange box. Plus, I did find some things, but I'm confused with all of the GCF's and the CFDs and the MOFUTS (randomly making stuff up now) and the copying these over, then go here and install this, then copy this file over, etc. when I'm not even sure if that's doing what I'm wanting to do.

I like paying for my games, but here is another point towards the piracy argument.

thanks.

 

[lark]

Why don't you just log in to steam and save your details so you can login to steam offline?

 

[davarian]

I don't really get exactly how steam works, but it seems like this:

install steam. Log in. Install whatever games you have. Steam remembers these details so you can log off of steam and still play those games.

Problem: anytime I uninstall and reinstall the orange box, or want to install a new game from valve, I have to haul my PC somewhere, log into steam, install it, and log out again. No thanks....would rather pirate the game and be done with it, or find a way around this. Since I already bought orange box, I would like to find away around it so I can legitimately use what I purchased.

 

[Assassin94]

You can always use a steam emulator like UCL

or force steam into offline mode

 

[JackalDeMon]

This will force steam to Install Files from the Disc!
install steam only, then close steam.
Now Use this in command start programs, run type in "C:\Program Files\Steam\Steam.exe" -install F:
Replace "F:" with your DVD drive(the drive your Orange box is in or your virtual drive). The installer will still make the cache files online, but after that it will install from your disc. Now you only have to update...
PS. Team Fortress's update is over 3 GB, but the others will only do about 200mb updates now..
Hope it helps!

 

[davarian]

Sorry for no reply...been busy.

I just tried JackalDeMon's method, and no luck. It says to run steam, I must be connected to the Internet.

I will try UCL and let you know how it goes. Thanks again!

 

[nitestalkr]

as far as i know you have to have an internet connection to install the games, unless you have a large portable drive that you can haul to go to another computer (like your friends house) to get internet and install steam and your games on that drive and then you should be able to play offline on your comp back at home, i had to do that once but then i moved somewhere that i get wifi on my laptop (thank you neighbors for unlocked connections )

 

[davarian]

Ok, so I'm still trying to get this to work. I found a bunch of programs, one which was called UCL, which I read can launch steam programs and games WITHOUT needing to actually install steam (therefore, no internet required). I bought the orange box, as I mentioned before, and I found a program to rip off the .gcf files from the discs. I did that....now I'm stuck trying to get UCL to do it's thing. I tried a bunch of other programs as well, including CF Toolbox, undead steam, etc.

Either, I'm an idiot and I can't figure this out, or I'm not going about it the right way and might need some other additional software. I legitimately bought the orange box, all I'm trying to do is install Portal / Half life 2 onto my machine WITHOUT needing the Internet. I carry around my super old laptop to internet cafe's about 30 minutes from my house to do stuff on the internet like this as I don't have any internet connection available at my house.

I tried installing steam onto my laptop, setting it to offline mode, and then copying all the files onto my thumb drive and putting them onto my home computer, but steam still wont launch saying it can't find the profile or something like that.