Gotchas

Gotchas

Steam exit behavior

When Steam closes, SteamShell restores the normal desktop state:

• Unhides the taskbar
• Temporarily sets Explorer as the shell (Winlogon Shell)
• Starts/restarts Explorer to restore a usable desktop
• Then reverts the shell setting back to SteamShell.exe for next boot

Explorer “ghost mode”

SteamShell may keep Explorer running in the background with the taskbar hidden so Windows features depending on UWP plumbing (e.g., Microsoft Game Bar) still work.

Exclusive fullscreen limits

Some exclusive fullscreen apps cannot always be brought to the front by third-party activation calls. If Alt+Tab works but script activation doesn’t, that’s often an OS-level focus restriction. SteamShell mitigates many cases but can’t override all exclusive focus rules.

Recording shortcuts triggers Windows

The shortcut recorder captures correctly, but the OS will also see the shortcut while recording.

If you get stuck

• Keep Ctrl+Alt+Shift+E available as an emergency escape.
• Having a USB keyboard attached for kiosk builds is worth it.

Controller input dies after sleep

Usually recovers on its own. If not, Ctrl+Alt+Shift+I re-arms it — and tells you what broke. See Input recovery.

The controller does nothing inside Xbox FSE

XInput reads zeros inside FSE. If your pad works on the desktop but not in FSE, it needs RawInput, and RawInput needs to understand its report layout. See Controller Learner.

An RTSS frame cap silently does not stick

Profile writes may need administrator rights. SteamShell runs at normal integrity on purpose and hands that single write to a verified elevated helper — which is off by default in the companion. See RTSS.

Settings changed but nothing happened

Most take effect on reload — Ctrl+Alt+Shift+R. A few need a restart. If a change seems ignored entirely, check you edited the file the program is actually using: the log records the settings path on startup, and editing a copy in another folder is silent.

Window placement is still primary-monitor

Game detection is per-monitor as of 2.0.0. Window centring is not — it still centres against the primary display. Known limitation, recorded in the release notes.