Laptop to desktop game transfer

I bought this game but found myself unable to activate it over my dialup connecton. (I know... ) I cannot even install steam as it tells me I'm not connected to the internet which is utter hogwash. I can play Stronghold Kingdoms MMO online without any problems, a freaking MMO! http://strongholdkingdoms.com/

So my next idea is to take it to Best Buy where I bought the disk and ask them to install it on my laptop, the problem is my lappy isn't powerful enough to run the game and I'll need to transfer it to my desktop at home to play it.

Is it possible to for me to "move" the installed game to my desktop PC without needing to Log into steam again?

You can set steam up on a thumb drive. Probably at least 16 Gb's. Make sure that it is working ok. Then just move the thumb drive from one computer to the other one. Using the steam.exe from the thumb drive steam folder should work. If you left it in the offline mode, it should stay there, but it may have to verify with steam when it senses you are on a different computer.

Therein lies the problem, steam refuses to connect on my desktop. Could anyone confirm or explain the procedure when swapping the thumb drive between PCs?

Edit: Looks like I've found the answer (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=373076)

Q. When using offline mode, will I need to periodically reconnect to the Internet?
A. No. Once you switch to offline mode you can stay in that mode forever. The one exception is that if you significantly change your computer’s hardware, you will need to switch to online mode and launch the game one time to reactivate the game. There is, unfortunately, no way for software to tell the difference between a change in hardware and a move to a completely new computer, which is why this happens.

Click to expand...

So even if I took the game in to best buy and had them install the steam client, install the game, install all the 'mandated' updates, and put it in offline mode I would still be forced to spend several hours hoping the client doesn't time out just to link my Desktop PC.

Well there's no way I'm taking the entire tower into the store so Valve here's my middle finger and a fu, enjoy cause you have seen the last penny from me.

The golden age of PC games is clearly over.

It will give you a box asking you to input a code that is sent to your email. I would make sure before you left best buy to uncheck any auto update boxes. At least then you may bypass any massive downloads. Steam just needs to update the hardware change via the code sent to your e-mail.

So could I move my game onto my offline desktop PC with Steam in offline mode and play the game after inputting the code emailed to me?

If so I might actually be able to play the game.

When you get the verification e-mail, you have to be online when you input the code. After that you can go offline and stay there.

Ok, thanks for the assistance.