I am very confused about my expansions?

My question is:

How can I tell which expansions are currently installed? Any new quests or things I should look for? I bought the complete edition which includes Stormblood, A Realm Reborn, and Heavensward. Here's the reason why I'm so confused.

I had the launcher from the website from years ago but never got into it. However, here recently, I've been looking to join but it said I needed to get the code from Steam.

I went to Steam and bought the entire edition. Then took the registration codes and entered them into the Mog Station. Now I have two launchers. The one from Steam says it needs installing and the original one from the website magically says Stormblood and allows me to play without me actually installing it. I'm so confused and don't see any difference other than the intro movie.

If the game is installed, then all expansions are installed. There is no option for a partial expansionless install. The only thing that determines whether or not you have access to those expansions is whether you registered the codes on the Mog Station, and it sounds like you've done that.

Steam is merely a thin veneer over the standalone FFXIV system, so if you're able to log in via the "old launcher", then you're fine. If Steam still doesn't recognize that FFXIV is installed, then it's probably just looking in a different place for the game files (Steam installs to a different directory than FFXIV normally does). If you really want to open the game via Steam, then you should probably uninstall the game and reinstall via Steam. If you don't care about that, then just use the launcher that works. Alternatively, there's probably a way to point steam toward the directory that FFXIV is already installed to, but that's beyond my expertise.

iirc if you bought the base game through steam you need to buy all expacs through steam as well and if you buy the game from another source you cannot buy expacs through steam. I think the launcher looks the same regardless of whether or not you have SB or not.

Its some weird steam rule I guess, idk for sure but they locked it somehow.

if you have the steam version you don't have to launch it from steam. you can just use the normal pc launcher.

The game, as binary files, require everything installed up to latest patch (as Raldo said before).
Think if you are on vanilla 2.0 and you go an instance with someone wearing 4.0 gear, what the client must show to you?

The "difference" is about your account: if you don't have the expansion in your account, you cannot access (some of) that expansion's features.

When you read patch notes, you will see for each feature which expansion it need have active for your account.

Ok, guys! Thanks for the quick reply! I had figured it out and you are 100 percent correct. I honestly believed it could have been a partial download or something. Lol. So that takes a load off of my mind. Thanks again, all of you.