steam-windows-emulation

Tutorial on how to use Steam for Linux as a Windows emulator.

Table of Contents

• Overview
• Prerequisites
• Step One: Installation
• Step Two: Configuration
• Step Three: DPI Scaling
• License
• References

Overview

Steam is a digital content distribution service developed by Valve. As most games are developed for the Windows platform, Valve created an open-source tool called Proton for the Steam Linux client. Proton acts as Windows compatibility layer for Linux, allowing games exclusive to Windows to run on Linux.

While Proton was developed for allowing Windows games to run on Linux, it can also be used to run any type of Windows software, from games to productivity applications. This allows Steam for Linux to serve as a Windows emulator that is easy to setup and configure.

This tutorial will demonstrate this capability by using Steam for Linux to install and configure Notepad++, a popular Windows text editor.

Prerequisites

Before we begin, you will need:

• The Steam for Linux client installed
• The Windows .exe installer for your application

In this tutorial, I will be using the Notepad++ installer npp.8.8.1.Installer.x64.exe.

Step One: Installation

In the Steam client, select Games > Add a Non-Steam Game to My Library from the menu:

The window Add Non-Steam Game will pop up. Select the Browse… button:

Navigate to the location of your Windows .exe installer and select it. You can filter the list in the Add Non-Steam Game window by entering the name of the installer in the text field. Once you have ensured your installer is checked, click the Add Selected Programs button:

This will add the installer to your Games list on the left side of your Library. Before you launch the installer, right-click it and select Properties…:

A properties window will pop up. Click on the Compatibility section on the left side. Check the Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool option and select from the drop-down the latest stable version of Proton. At the time of this writing that version is Proton 9.0-4:

When you are done, close the window and launch the program. The installer for your selected application should appear:

If for some reason the installer does not launch, select a different version of Proton and retry. Once the installation process is complete, you should see your program successfully launch:

Although the program launched, the shortcut is still configured to launch the installer. Next, we will need to modify the shortcut properties so that it launches the installed program instead.

Step Two: Configuration

Locate the installed application

First you will need to locate where the application was installed. When you add an application to Steam, the files for that application are placed in a subdirectory located at:

~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/

However, these subdirectories are named with numerical IDs rather than the application name. You will need to identify which subdirectory contains the application you just installed. The easiest method will be to use the find command from the terminal. To do this, first navigate to the parent directory:

cd ~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/

Then use the find command with the name of your application:

find . -iname '*notepad++*'

If this does not reveal the location, you will need to manually search for the directory. Since we just installed the application, you can narrow down your search by checking the creation timestamps of the subdirectories by running:

ls -l --time=creation

As an example, my Notepad++ installation was placed in a directory named 3060847736 and I found the .exe for the application at:

~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/3060847736/pfx/drive_c/Program Files/Notepad++/notepad++.exe

Once you have found the correct location of the .exe for the application, continue to the next step.

Modify the shortcut properties

Close out the application if you have not done so already. As before, right-click the entry for your application in the Games list on the left side of your Library and select Properties…:

We will need to point the Steam shortcut to the actual location of the installed Windows program. This is done by modifying the TARGET and START IN shortcut properties. Before you enter these properties, note that:

• You cannot use tilde expansion ~/ to reference your home directory. Use the full path instead.
• Both values need to be enclosed in quotation marks.
• The two examples listed below are specific to my installation. Use the paths for your installation from the previous step.

In the TARGET field, enter the full path to the .exe:

"/home/user/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/3060847736/pfx/drive_c/Program Files/Notepad++/notepad++.exe"

In the START IN field, enter the directory containing the .exe:

"/home/user/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/3060847736/pfx/drive_c/Program Files/Notepad++"

You can also modify the name of the shortcut at the top to reflect the application name. When you are done, your Shortcut section should look similar to the following:

Launch the application

Close out the properties window and launch the application. If you configured everything correctly, the application should run:

And you are done! However, if you are like me and find yourself squinting to read the text in the application, you may want to continue to the next step.

Step Three: DPI Scaling

First, close out the application. To change the DPI scaling settings for the application, you will need to modify the user.reg file for the application. This file can be found in the pfx subdirectory of your installation. For example:

~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/3060847736/pfx/user.reg

Open this file in a text editor of your choice, then search for a section heading named [Control Panel\\Desktop]:

Below this heading will be a list of values. To change the DPI scaling for this application, you will need to add two values to the end of this section.

• The first value is "Win8DpiScaling"=dword:00000001 which enables DPI scaling.

• The second value is LogPixels which specifies the DPI scaling value. Since this value is expressed as a hexadecimal number, refer to the following table to determine which value to use based on your desired DPI setting:

  Scaling	DPI	Value
  100%	96	"LogPixels"=dword:00000060
  125%	120	"LogPixels"=dword:00000078
  150%	144	"LogPixels"=dword:00000090
  200%	192	"LogPixels"=dword:000000c0

For example, to set my DPI scaling to 200% I would add the following two lines highlighted below:

Save user.reg and relaunch the application. The new DPI scaling will now be in effect:

License

GNU General Public License v3.0

References

Steam Homepage

Notepad++ Homepage

GitHub - ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux

GitHub - ValveSoftware/Proton