Now that the gog.com downloader has a download rate limiter, I'd like to start using it to manage all my GOG games.

However, I don't want to re-download them all. On my lousy connection, that would take literally weeks.

Copying my existing files into the downloader's directory structure does NOT work. It redownloads and overwrites the existing files.

Is there any way to do this, or am I stuck not using the downloader to manage games I've already downloaded?

Works for me. Maybe you have older versions of the installers (not necessarily the games themselves)?

I thought of that, but I tried downloading some smaller files via http then tried through the downloader, and it redownloaded.

Does it work for you on the 'Bonus Files', the packs of manuals and such?

I'm wondering if the downloader sets some metadata on the files. I should check that. (I'm using the downloader on a Mac. For all I know it's timestamping in the filesystem Comments field or something.)

Hm. Doesn't look like there's anything unusual set on the file. Curious.

I've just tried it on the Retro City Rampage manual, and the GOG Downloader saw the manual I downloaded via http just fine. I suppose it's possible that certain games give you different files when using the Downloader or the web interface, but it's hard to say unless someone from the GOG team confirms it one way or the other.

I'm not getting what you want to do.... the GoG downloader is exactly that. Click a link on the GoG site then the downloader will connect to the supplied URL using your account credentials and download the game installer. That is all it does. It's not Steam.

You still need to run the game installer to actually install the game and you uninstall the game either through Control Panel or by using the supplied uninstaller.

I'm aware of that. However, the downloader is also capable of notifying of and handling patches. (At least, according to the downloader's page.) Which is mainly why I'd like to be using the downloader.

For right now, I'm just using it to get things I didn't already have via HTTP. Which is still a lot of stuff.

Er, edit: The rate limiter is critical for me because my net connection sorta sucks. So what I was doing before this was using VNC to log into a remote server, run Firefox on that to download the games from GOG to the server space, then using wget --limit-rate to move the games from that server to my computer.

It works, but it's clunky and complicated and that server has a 10 gig drive space limit, so I can't queue up many games at once.

That's the main reason I wasn't using the downloader before this.