But Windows isn’t an ideal operating system for the Steam Deck, at least not out of the box. Its mouse-and-keyboard-oriented user interface isn’t comfortable or convenient to use on a small handheld system like the Steam Deck. Windows 11 makes some allowances for touchscreens, but its buttons and menus can still be hard to tap on such a small screen. The controller doesn’t work outside of Steam, including on Windows’ touchscreen keyboard, and installing drivers and launching games for the first time can be a pain.
Microsoft is aware of the problems running Windows on the Steam Deck and other similar handheld Windows PCs, and at least some developers inside the company have spent time thinking of ways to address them. That’s the thrust of a leaked presentation (posted in two parts by Twitter user _h0x0d_) about a new “Handheld Mode” for Windows, developed as part of an internal Microsoft hackathon in September 2022.
Windows just isn’t a great operating system choice for these handheld PC gaming devices, and slapping a skin on it is not going to change that. Valve can integrate Linux and Proton with the hardware of the Steam Deck, and fine tune both down to the very source code – and considering Valve’s many contributions to open source, that’s exactly what it’s doing.
Meanwhile, if you’re one of those companies making Steam Deck competitors running Windows – you’re shit out of luck. All you can do is add crapware left and right to hide the Windows of it all, but in the end, you just can’t optimise the software for the hardware in the same way Valve can.
Thom,
I would not be so negative.
My Deck dual boots to Windows for games not available natively. Or rather not available on the Steam storefront, as others like GOG, Epic, Microsoft/Xbox, EA/Origin, Ubi, etc all have their separate launchers, most of which don’t work at all, or those do, they would work with issues.
(Yes, there is Heroic, and Lutris. Some discussion here: https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/urya9z/questions_about_lutris_vs_heroic/)
And Windows games just work, except the shell itself. And I am sure Steam’s own “full screen interface” (Big Picture) would also be great, if you can get through other issues (logging in, virtual keyboards, network setup, disk management, etc).
So, this is a win for the gamers.
As for the Deck alternatives, yes good luck to them. Deck is already pretty good with a nice price, though I always welcome more competition.
Some people are quite forgetful…
Windows 8, the OS everyone loves to hate, was a specifically designed for tablet use. The introduction of a full screen “start” page, the rollout of touch-friendly “modern” apps, and a complete overhaul of the backend of Win32 to natively support high resolution displays and UI scaling.
Sure, Windows 8 was a bit of a flop, mainly because most people were still using it on a mouse-and-keyboard driven computer, and the touch-friendly UI was not particularly suitable for this. However, with Windows 10 and Windows 11, those touch-friendly UI additions were paired back, but not totally removed. Therefore, it should be trivial to make another touch-friendly Windows edition, even if it’s marketed as a “same but different” OS to the standard mouse-and-keyboard editions shipped with most PCs.
“Windows just isn’t a great operating system choice for these handheld PC gaming devices, and slapping a skin on it is not going to change that.”
Really Thom? The guys that have a stripped down version of Windows running every Xbox ever can’t make a decent handheld UI? Your bias is a little more than showing. And of course someone already said something about Windows 8, but that was a hostile attempt to force it on users that didn’t want it. This is of course an attempt to make something good for users that do want it.
I understand your point, but this article is specifically about Microsoft adding a new user interface to *Windows* to be used on handheld devices. I know the Xbox has all of the libraries needed for Windows games to run, but can you honestly call what is running on the Xbox “Microsoft Windows”?
I agree, Microsoft does have the ability to make an OS for handheld devices that has all of the libraries to run games for Windows, but I also agree with Thom, if it really is a new UI on top of Microsoft Windows it’ll be a mess of an experience.
All Microsoft products are an NT kernel with a different GUI, and Windows 8 proves they can switch out a new interface easily, and on the same system. Plus games are usually full screen anyway so this will be easy for them.
Do yall sense XBox Ads on deck here?
Windows has the advantage of being fully compatible with win32/win64 by definition. In other words, sure, Valve has the advantage of being able to integrate Proton down to the source level, but Microsoft has the advantage of being able to directly integrate the real thing (Windows) down to the source level.
You guys don’t have to get so biased about the Steam Deck, it can be successful in its own.
Valve’s true advantage is that Valve can afford to offer the Steam Deck at cost price, while modern-day Microsoft is so ruthlessly focused on next-quarter profit they won’t. It’s the reason the Surface line is a relative failure, because Microsoft wants to have a margin on Surface devices like the Dells and HPs would. Bill Gates-era Microsoft had no problem taking a loss on the original Xbox in order to achieve a long-term win and create a new product line.
This is indeed interesting. That in 2023 we are having debates on the internet on how one should tinker with Windows. To get to the “real deal”. When it comes to running games. Reality being majority doesn’t care and is fine with default Linux based offering. It’s amazing to see on just how much the times have changed!
BTW my post was meant to be a reply to article not your comment.
Such attempts are usually fruitless. No special reason to believe this one will be any different. If you want to combine desktop and mobile metaphor you will most likely fail. In best case scenario Windows “handheld mode” would turn out to be good. But the applications would still suck. If you would change applications to not suck in Windows “handheld mode”. Then they would likely start to suck in Windows. Add to all this likely a small team inside Microsoft working on it. In the end no real reason to look beyond default experience.
Phoronix might be a biased source, but DAMN that is impressive. Wine usually only gets 20% faster than windows in most games, proton inded has come a long way. And including WarFrtont in a benchmark suite is just rubbing it in since the last version that ran that game is windows 7 afaik.
I still can’t believe this thing really exists. Twelve years ago, if you would have said that a big company would make a handheld Windows gaming system powered by Linux and Wine, even us hardcore Linux users would have died with laughter at the idea.
That said, Valve needs to diversify before Microsoft Netscapes them. Microsoft is locking down the consumer PC… buying more of the games industry by the day… it’s only a matter of time before Microsoft comes for valve. And by “comes for Valve”, I mean making it so that you can’t install Steam on a new PC without going through complicated hoops, perhaps paying Microsoft to be allowed to run third party software, and by the way, “you can just use Microsoft’s game store instead because it comes preinstalled by default, and you cannot uninstall it even if you wanted to!” (TM) Since you’ve already been forced to sign into Windows with a Microsoft account, here are some freemium games of the month to get you started, and most of your favorite game series’ are now exclusive to the Microsoft store anyway, because they were acquired by Microsoft years ago.
Actually I disagree – what you said sounds like Apple tactics and not Microsoft.
MS has good track of allowing third party software to modify your OS which in one way is good in other is bad (rootkits).
You can complain about ms as much as you want but I never had a situation where windows told me that I’m not allowed to run this app.
Valve proton will always be behind windows so they are not worried – MS will start to worry when Valve creates its own new APIs and libs for games so they can run on any OS. However this is not the case now – currently there is win win scenario.
grung,
While I’m not a fan of microsoft, I don’t think that’s a fair thing to say. Microsoft doesn’t allow this and if you buy a certificate and are caught doing this, they will revoke your certificate.
MS have made several attempts at locking down windows apps to a microsoft controlled app store while deprecating legacy win32 ones. The problem for microsoft is that consumers unanimously hated products designed with these restrictions like windows RT and windows 8. Windows 8 was a market failure, but I’m not sure people even realize how close it was to changing the course of user installable applications on windows forever.
The reason Windows 8 was as jarring as it was wasn’t because MS thought they had a good UI on their hands, MS knew and understood it was junk. However it was designed to promote metro applications from the MS store as first class applications while relegating win32 software as second class applications running on an isolated “legacy desktop” with the option of culling it at some point in the future. Windows 8 checked microsoft’s boxes and in particular it positioned users and applications around an app store controlled exclusively by microsoft. If they had gotten their way, this was going to be the future for windows that microsoft wanted.
While I agree apple are better known for these application restrictions, I would not say they’re unique to apple. Microsoft has certainly shown great interest in these tactics too and for the same reasons, but apple’s been more successful with them to date.
kbd,
A version of windows with the restrictions you are talking about does in fact exist. It was called “windows 10 s”. It locked down your applications, browser, email client, etc… And yes steam was prohibited.
https://www.howtogeek.com/305363/what-is-windows-s-and-how-is-it-different/
At the time microsoft planned to charge customers $50 to remove S edition restrictions and allow users to have a normal environment, but they did a 180 and decided not to do that. I’m not certain why but I think it may have been related to antitrust blow back. “windows 10 and 11 S mode” are still a thing today, with the same restrictions, however s mode restrictions are supposed to be optional on these machines.
https://www.howtogeek.com/354057/what-is-windows-10-in-s-mode/
There have been lots of scares in terms of microsoft locking down PCs, and I certainly don’t trust microsoft’s motives. But at the same time they must realize that alot of their antics could attract significant antitrust action. I suspect this helps keep total consumer lockouts at bay. The level of trust isn’t great, but at least thankfully things like secure boot locked to MS keys haven’t been compulsory.
One good thing i see is that although most people couldn’t care less if they run Windows or Linux on such devices to play games. All are still rather picky when it comes to imposing artificial restrictions. Only Apple users couldn’t care less about that. And luckily Apple is not a real player here.
“That said, Valve needs to diversify before Microsoft Netscapes them. Microsoft is locking down the consumer PC… ”
This is exact;y why this product exists.
Lennie,
And, Microsoft more of less given up fighting against Steam store. Even Activision are bringing their titles back.
The only real risk to Valve is their lack of presence on mobile, which makes more than 50% of the gaming market today. In fact, this is also a risk to Microsoft, too. (And that is a major reason they are buying Activision/Blizzard/King).
Tom, you recently publish an article about the core windows project (can’t remember the exact name) which means they’re still working on modularity. Most Windows games accept the XBox controller as an input, There’s native DirectX. Huge Library. XBox brand.
I mean, they’re capable of completely ruin it but there’s a lot of potential.
I find this so ironic, for decades when a device is another OS, “linux” is applauded for trying to run on it and the argument levied is basically word for word what Thom has used;
Linux just isn’t a great operating system choice for these XXX devices, and slapping a skin on it is not going to change that.
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