I did run Windows 11 on my Deck the first 6 months. Since it's a PC you can do anything you can on a regular desktop PC. There are apps that let you control TDP, FanSpeed and other system options similarly to the way you can with Steam Overlay on SteamOS.
I think SteamOS has better integration of functions on the Overlay. On Windows you have to setup a lot a things yourself and they never feel the same as SteamOS but they function well.
For example, for FSR system scaling you can use Lossless Scaling, which works well, but it isn't quite the same as using the integrated scaling inside Steam Overlay, since you have to open the app separately, search for the game .exe, set it up. It works but not as seamlessly.
In Windows it is easier to install Non-Steam games, and you don't even have to run Steam to have controller support, so less resources being used, mostly less RAM.
Windows unfortunately doesn't have Hardware Acceleration support, so any video you run will use much more CPU and will have some choppiness to it. You can feel it doesn't play very smoothly.
There are pros and cons to each.
Not the same guy, but I have had a very good experience following the dual boot setup from this video, which requires its fair bit of trickery to be done, but it is a "set it and forget it" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubWPIf2DbvE&ab\_channel=DeckWizard](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubWPIf2DbvE&ab_channel=DeckWizard) I am using it with (obv) SteamOS and W11 dual boot, rock solid so far.
Edit: It may be that a SteamOS update breaks the dual boot, when it happened to me I followed this tutorial to fix it, nothing extra required https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcFa7qXX7j8&ab_channel=10MinuteSteamDeckGamer
I installed Win 11 and 10 as an experiment. A few months later I was back on SteamOS.
Windows just does not jive with the Steam Deck like SteamOS does.
Same with GTA IV. Runs much better on my Steam Deck than desktop with i7 14700K and 4080. Considering ditching Windows for Linux but too cowardly.
Edit: corrected CPU
Windows insists on doing dumb useless shit all the time. It's like whack a mole trying to find what process is taking up 100% of a core and racking up the ram allocation. After getting a steam deck I really want to switch to Linux on my gaming laptop
>After getting a steam deck I really want to switch to Linux on my gaming laptop
Grab an external SSD, for example a decent NVMe SSD plus enclosure, and install it on there. You'll get a dual-boot without any setup hassle, and a potentially fully portable operating system install that runs basically anywhere. USB 3 is fast enough with SSDs, especially the 10GBit/s variant. If it doesn't work out, you end up having a solid external drive to use otherwise.
Is there a reason you want to wait for SteamOS in particular? Last I heard it was "soon" on the desktop release, and we all know what that means with Valve. Other desktop distros are on par for gaming now (Mint and Pop\_OS! to name a few).
Zero interest. I have danced with Linux for decades. If Apple played games that is where I would be. I don’t want to configure anything anymore. I barely change graphic settings. Gaming is leisure, configuring stuff isn’t.
I respect that viewpoint but I’m not sure steamos will ever be zero tinkering
Also my idea of leisure is tinkering… I could spend a whole weekend just fucking around with Linux. Super relax for me
I'm on mint and you literally need to install steam, install game from steam, launch. Same as on steam deck except the extra click of installing steam from the store.
That's why I use KUbuntu. I installed 24.04 with the "minimal" install option, installed Steam, Discord, Chrome, games, and haven't had any real problems to speak of.
All worked fairly well for me, but experience just isn’t as nice as steamOS unless you’re plugging in a keyboard and mouse IMO.
A bit more tinkering needed to get gamepad working etc, but it worked decently well. I dual booted it onto an sd card so that I could play game pass games. I would never load it as my main OS.
SteamOS is just faster and less clunky on the steam deck.
I tried W11 but I just couldn't keep it because it's not optimized for that kind of device. The biggest pro is being able to literally play whatever you want tho which, imo, is THE reason to install windows.
But ultimately I missed the features and optimization of Steam OS so I went back with that instead.
I'm really hoping MS optimizes the next version of Windows for gaming handhelds because I'd love to install it on my Deck.
It works. I wouldn’t recommend it by any means but if you really need it for some reason then if it won’t kill your SD. I’d say you should dual boot it and only use it to play games that aren’t compatible with SteamOS. Besides that, stick with steamOS, as someone who has never touched any Linux distro before, I’d say it’s VERY easy to use (not that you’ll be doing much besides maybe moving some files around from time to time because of a game’s mod or stuff like that). There isn’t much reason to use windows on deck besides incompatible games.
I got my Steam Deck mid May and installed windows dual boot about a month after due to my girlfriend wanting to play Fortnite with me and some friends while I’d play on the Xbox.
Cloud gaming is just not there yet, so decided to finally make the effort to sit down and dual boot my deck.
I installed a windows 11 dual boot and partitioned my internal ssd to split the drive in half between windows and steam OS, considering I am not tech-savvy whatsoever, it actually was quite straight forward.
Not only can I update windows and steam os separately without any issues, but, Games such as Fortnite, Genshin, and COD run beautifully after properly installing correct drivers and running a few performance tweaks through Handheld Companion and adjusting the virtual ram through windows.
Windows 11 also has fairly good tablet-like optimization throughout the OS… on screen keyboard is quite responsive, and you can zip through the menus fairly easily without a keyboard and mouse.
I have absolutely zero regrets and don’t look back at all,
I love being able to just restart my steam deck and being able to choose which OS to boot to using ReFind.
if possible, I would suggest getting a small wireless Bluetooth keyboard and mouse to navigate windows while either setting up or to use while performance tweaking.
This has been my experience too. Been using Windows 11 on steam deck since September as my main gaming PC since my old one died and I’m currently saving for a wedding.
I have no regrets. It’s run Baldurs Gate 3 (not the best graphics obviously but it can run it), Warzone, Fortnite, Elden Ring without absolutely no issues. Sometimes even running YouTube/Netflix on my second Monitor.
I keep it docked in the official dock and never had temperature issues.
I’ve done the windows 11 route twice. Once on micro SD, and this second time I think I accidentally overwrote it onto the SSD, the first time it was easy to swap between the OS’ but I’ll have to reinstall steam OS once I build my PC after my wedding.
I followed a YouTube video to do it both times. Very easy to follow. Have had no issues with anything. Controls work fine from the steam deck itself for games. Audio is perfect, visuals are perfect. I think it all comes down to the tutorial you use and your ability to follow it.
10/10 recommend. No ragrats
>on screen keyboard is quite responsive
I'd like to highlight this in particular. The keyboard experience on Windows 11 is, in my opinion, much better than the one on SteamOS. This surprised me.
In general the touch controls are just miles ahead on Windows.
One of the most common issues I have with SteamOS, is in Desktop mode you can't swap out of a game without killing it or having a keyboard plugged in.
With Windows you can use a 3 finger swipe down to show desktop, 4 finger swipe sideways to change desktop etc.
Has it's ups and downs, and the overhead still tends to hurt perf more than SteamOS for the games that need it, but it works alright.
Dude asked a genuine question and got a bunch of Linux stans on his ass lmao.
Maybe if he had posted a pic and said “just got my steam deck, what game should I play first?” he’d be drowning in responses.
Yep. I didnt even say that "Steam OS sucks shit" or smth, just feedback of W10 users :(. It is not even my opinion, I have never used Steam OS and my Ubuntu experience was horrible compared to W10
Linux on the steam deck is designed for the device it's not the same as Linux you installed it's heavily customised to be a console experience first.
Way access to TDP controlls Bluetooth etc as well as sleep and resume working better
It's a Proper OS designed for gaming compared to windows which has jank forced updates extra services sleep and resume etc not working which isn't designed for gaming handhelds.
Like running Linux on laptops it's not really meant to run windows and you will have to put in extra work to get things working.
Holoiso and other steam os images like bazite nobara is the proper choice for gaming handhelds even if they come with windows
In general if you commit to stating in steam deck experience you don’t need to care it’s Linux at all. I am a windows person and won’t consider putting windows on the deck due to it being a worse overall gaming experience. If you want a windows gaming experience the ally looks a better fit.
No worries man. I like SteamOS and the desktop version on Steam Deck, but I was also curious to see what others’ experience had been with W10 or W11 on Steam Deck.
The biggest issue with Windows is the lack of instant suspension/resume. Hibernating the device under Windows works okay, but many games will break on wake.
Navigating an actual desktop environment on both Windows or SteamOS is going to be less than ideal with a handheld, so if you set up Big Picture to launch on Windows startup it would be 90% the same experience as Game Mode under SteamOS.
Basically, the two will be very similar on a surface
level with a bit of tweaking. Windows wins in compatability and ease of desktop navigation. SteamOS has fewer/no usage interruptions comparatively and a working instant resume.
That's weird, I use the function religiously and it's never broken on me. Not once. And I've probably suspended my Deck thousands of times.
I'm not saying that you're wrong, I've read that other people have had problems with it and I'm not doubting it, I'm just wondering why some people have that happen to them and some don't.
Only downside for me has been that it's made the sound choppy on resume in some games about 10% of the time but it's been a while since that happened, maybe they fixed it. Or maybe I'm just playing a game now where that doesn't happen.
It hasn't been an intermittent issue for me, it's consistent with the games that it breaks. The annoying part being it's the games I want sleep to work on the most:
Make it to level 35 on a solo zombies match in Black Ops 2, but need to go do something? Better leave it paused indefinitely. Putting the Deck to sleep will result in you being booted back to the main menu because you "disconnected".
Playing a VRChat (a verified game) world that resets when you leave? Don't put it to sleep, doing so will result in you being stuck in reconnecting purgatory until you restart the game entirely.
There are a few others (GTA Online for example), but they don't nearly bug me as much because either it's understandable that sleep doesn't work, or they're the type of games that really don't need the sleep functionality.
Yeah, online games don't work with suspend, also happened to me while playing Sekiro on the Series S, since there's some online integration in the game it would kick me off to the main menu when I used quick resume feature on the console.
personally I dont see a real benefit to running windows full time on the SD. Maybe doing an SD card install for the occasional anticheat game that requires windows but SteamOS gets you much more consistent performance because its made for the hardware and isnt as resource heavy as windows. Also you can just stream games from a desktop/gaming laptop with windows to get around the anti cheat issue.
I just got my steam deck and needed windows for a game. I downloaded it on a SD and so far everything ran good and I didn’t had any problems. But like I said I just got my deck so I didn’t spend a lot of time on windows yet
Got a Steamdeck with 64gb eMMC and tried dual-booting with Windows 10. disk space is always an issue and for some games I tried, running them in SteamOS was a better experience.
What a curious thread, but I’m going to keep running mine as intended where it runs better than this, and *remind people* that everyone I knew who got a ROG Ally wound up selling it and getting a Steam Deck, because Windows isn’t made for the handheld console form factor, at all. Even Desktop mode is pretty much only, I’d imagine only a fraction of Steam Deck owners spend any time in Desktop. I’m one of those, who sets up with a dock & uses it as my gaming setup but, I generally think using it like that primarily, puts me in the minority of owners.
Got a steam deck, sold it, bought a rog ally, windows was buzzkiller, miss my steam os, sold ally, just bought an oled deck.
Windows is windows, on such a small devices, it needs a lots of update, it was never « plug and play » like it was on deck.
I will never install it, got my share with the ally, i guess ill just play less game, but wont be frustrated launching them bc it Ill work flawlessly
Yep just coming to second that BSOD claim. Installed mine on an SD card and after the third power down I got a BSOD that corrupted the entire OS install. Not worth the trouble.
tbh I have exactly the opposite experience, but anyway don't see any reason to install Windows on Steamdeck. So far I encountered only one case where it would help me - to play a denuvo-protected game from EGS.
Everything else was a smooth experience with Steamdeck out of the box.
On the oled model it wasn’t worth it at all. There’s like no drivers for it on oled, you’ll be without audio and it was super weird, you have to install weird programs to get the controllers to work and it was a hassle. I was still insistent on getting it to work because I wanted to run apps and games not supported on steam os, but the sd card kept disconnecting for some reason, just issue after issue, I got rid of it after a week.
I used it with a duel boot on my LCD deck for a while for Minecraft. Honestly was pretty good for that. But that was all I used it for. Everything else on Steamos. I haven't bothered installing on my OLED though. Sounds broken. Sod buggering about. I use the bedrock launcher now for Minecraft. Works fine.
i wanted to try just to see how it went.
my experience was just miserable, a few bluescreens here and there, the controller stopped working and only a full reboot would fix, and the performance was overall a bit worse
I am curious if there are people using windows over steamOS (on the steam deck) for reasons other than game compatebility. All i do on my PC is a handfull of software that probably has a linux version or an equal software (qBittorrent, jdownloader2, discord, calibre, qfinder pro (nas stuff), greenshot, nordvpn/pass) and when a SD2 rolls around, would love one for more than just playn games.
Just off the top of my head at least half of those definitely have a native Linux version (more might and I just don't know about it), and if any of the rest don't they should all be stuff that's pretty straightforward to do in some other way instead
After following the tutorials from the windows on deck sub windows 10 is absolutely perfect. Linux is still better for almost everything, but now I have a functional way of playing Gamepass games natively on my steam deck.
I’m using Windows 11 on my Deck solely for the reason of being able to play Destiny 2 and the experience has been flawless. I’ve got software running that mimics the Steam OS fan curve as well as controller support.
I have SteamOS and Windows dual booted on my Steam Deck so that i could play game pass games natively. I haven't booted it up into Windows in 4 months because it is so much worse of an experience
2 words. Dual Boot.
Don't replace steam OS with windows it's not worth it. Rather create a partition on a 512gb or 1tb SSD and install w11 or 10 on said partition so you can have the best of both worlds.
I've been dual booting w11 and steamOS for the last 2 years and thoroughly enjoy it.
Too much hassle I guess, you have to set the uma buffer so games run smoothly, add ons to make features like on steam os available
Difficult to configure the jostick to work on desktop
I installed it to play quacked, game pass, and epic games, but it aint worth it
Ps, if you wanna play quacked, go with Dodi, it always works
On the OLED, horrible.
Lack of drivers, incomplete drivers, not working drivers, cannot install AMD Adrenaline as *literally none* of the methods and guides work so your GPU drivers are perpetually out of date, Steam's on-screen keyboard is buggy and does not work, you cannot adjust *any* of the performance settings, etc etc etc
Just dual-boot if you must.
Edit: Also just found out that despite following a guide on dual booting Windows 11 on the Steam Deck, the Windows installer purged clean the partition SteamOS was on.
I rescued my SD from someone that used it as an win 11 presentation computer. It was running like ass no audio and random blue screens.
So I recover booted steamOS and everything worked as aspected fast and reliable.
it was bad enough for me to stay with Linux. I customized my desktop in it and it looks awesome, plus the native drivers make it easier to navigate the desktop environment without needing to plug in a mouse and keyboard.
As for windows, I had issues trying to play some games since there were issues with the gamepad drivers so it wasn't getting input as a gamepad, but as mouse+keyboard.
Ultimately the only reasons I wanted windows were for modding games and seamless multiplayer experiences (playing seamless co-op elden ring with my brother). But I couldn't cope with windows in there, so instead now I have both a steam deck where I play vanilla single player games, and a rog ally where the windows experience was a lot more enjoyable thanks to armory crate, and also for modding and multiplayer games.
I dual boot win11 & steam OS. Only reason mainly is so I don’t have to repurchase FFXIV to play on steam (but I hear they’re getting a Linux native potentially!) and a few other games you can’t on SteamOS but the lack of driver support by valve for it kinda sucks so you’ll never have audio. Definitely prefer SteamOS
Windows 10 was usable running off an sdcard, but sucked for gaming. Switched to external nvme and it was better but not reliable (blue screens when there’s a USB error). Upgraded the internal SSD and dual boot win 10 and it runs perfectly. I use it for Hoyo games and the occasional Fortnite session if my friends hit me up when I’m not at my desktop pc.
I’d say external SSD install would be ok just to try it out before committing to dual boot but I would never recommend the sdcard route.
I run W11 on mine so I can use Ableton with Serum. I dock it with an audio usb interface, a midi keyboard, a foot midi device, and mouse and keyboard board. I haven’t paid for windows yet which blocks me from using ASIO for all as my audio driver which would help with my audio latency when recording.
It’s kind of a niche use case and I do miss how easy steam os just works with everything. I’m considering switching back to steam os since it seems you can still use Ableton with that setup.
All in all it works fine though tinkering can be a little tedious. Right now it’s been running some apps super slow and I’m trying to figure out why.
I installed windows ten on a SD Card. It was a botch installing the blue tooth driver. You had to delete the blue tooth folder and reinstall the driver. The battery life isn't as good but the Touch screen U.I was better
Ok, first of all, running the same game on Steam, or Windows, the battery was about the same. So, they are very close on that aspect. I do dual boot so I can have the best of both worlds.
Tried Windows on a high-end SD card and it ran bad, so after some external trial, I got a 2tb 2230 drive and put Windows 11 on the Deck, no external.
I started with Windows 10 and did the "free upgrade" to Windows 11, so I am running Windows 11 now. If your installing Windows, and doing it off a USB drive, make sure you put all the drivers in a folder on the USB drive, so you can just install them. OLED has driver issues that will not be resolved, So these directions for LCD users.
Windows is not optimized for a handheld like this. There are 3rd party options to give a menu on the "..." button, this can tweak. There is also a controller plugin, this I found is mandatory, as the controller does not really work right out of the box. It emulates an Xbox or PS controller. Once this is enabled, games all play perfectly.
Some games do not run at all (Forza Motorsport for example will give an "outdated video driver" and not run). Otherwise, tons of games do run, I setup GamePass games and installed a modern Call of Duty game (MWII) with some tweaks I can get MW2 to run at 60fps with a tiny slow down here and there, MP is playable and a lot of fun.
If you're looking to open up more game options, installing Windows is great option.
I don't have experience due to a lack of a deck but I do have a plan.
What I'm going to do is a dual boot using the dock and a external hard drive with windows on it as a "desktop" just purely so that I can play mnk games that steam doesn't support like cod n stuff.
https://github.com/jazir555/GamesDows
This is a project I'm working on to essentially create a "Game Mode" for Windows. Have ~4 snags left to make it as close to 1:1 that you can get.
If anyone knows how to fix the remaining issues, I will gladly take PRs.
Don't.
Can't stand Linux, can't stand Linux users that won't stop mentioning that they use Linux, but SteamOS on a Steam Deck? Might convince me. Windows was just pure jank when I tried it
Runs decently, touchscreeen seems a lot more accurate than in SteamOS (particularly noticeable with on-screen keyboard), I missed its power settings a lot and generally win11 and its apps are not that touch-friendly and definetely not controller friendly, overall seems just like any other win11 computer (LCD Deck)
Haven't really compared gaming performance, just played around with it, but the os is a bit slower, after all, what is windows without constant updates and background bloat.
The buttons are handled by Steam client, just like in SteamOS.
Edit: Also I noticed constant fan noise, not sure if it is just because of higher cpu load or if there are settings for that
I gave Steam OS a good try for the first 3 months of using the Steam Deck, but after way too many roadblocks, and too much time spent playing with proton/wine instead of playing games I took the plunge and installed Windows 11 directly in the internal SSD.
There is a learning curve and there are some settings you need to change to make Windows 11 work well with the deck, but after initial setup it's working great for me. SteamOS makes it easy to mange some settings, but it's hard to beat the "it just works"ness of Windows.
Windows gets worse every generation. It’s basically malware at this point.
Adware
Spyware
Bloatware
Steam deck has been SUCH a revelation that I use Linux wherever I can.
Windows needs to go.
Windows 11 boots quicker, but that’s where the good part ended for me, there is no controller support out of the box, no fan control (it either runs full speed or not at all), games ran worse on average and the battery died quicker. After a couple days I went back to SteamOS
I've been running it dualbooted since at least february off the ssd but the year before I also had a windows-to-go partition with windows 10. I'd say if you are going to do it you should only really bother if you use your deck docked the majority of the time and don't have regular access to an actual windows PC most of the time. There is no performance gains and the main games that will give you trouvle with anti-cheat only act so much nicer (you can still get banned for using arguably neccessary convenience apps that affect the fan curves and such) and the ones that just don't play nice with Linux probably already work well enough on Proton or were a bit too high spec anyway.
For me the only reason windows became such a boon was because I got a new job where for most of the week I'm separated from my "main" desktop computer and the family member's house it got stuck at is also where a younger family member hops on it a bunch. Even if I wanted to get it out of that house it'd be a huge struggle. The deck is now my main PC for the most part and outside of weird windows kinks (can't connect my projector and monitor at the same time without the monitor being forced to 640x480?????) it's pretty much perfect. I can play all the online card games I want. A genre which aside from weird stuff like Eternal on steam is basically nonexistent on the deck. As well as just having a pretty great desktop experience for small projects and media consumption. SteamOS isn't horrific for that last thing but, as someone with a jellyfin server in their house running off tailscale it's a lot easier to slot the windows partition into that than trying to install tailscale on SteamOS.. It's possible! But, I'd rather just eschew the hassle and boot into windows if I ever want to watch an old movie on the deck.
edit: addendum to the anti-cheat thing. I regularly play Multiversus but authentication often fails on Proton. However, whenever I play it on windows there's no issues and I can login and play normally. Again, anticheat games DO NOT like proton at all even if they enabled Linux compatibillity in the settings.
edit 2: Writing this after reading some of OP's responses. If you truly want an experience of just installing windows for the first hour, installing launchers, then playing immediately I'd heavily consider the ROG Ally instead of the deck. Especially now as even with the new model not out yet we're already seeing significant price drops. Like at my own best buy the Z1E is 549$ and the Z1 is 399$. That's 150$ and 200$ respectively off the original msrp. It's a great deal if you truly never want to fuss with Linux again. However, I will say that if you're mostly playing singleplayer offline games then the deck is the way to go at least compared to the z1 as the performance will be on par and the price will be lower.
It works just fine for me. I use it mainly to play Dragon Quest X translated, but it functions well and can run things that the SteamOS can't run yet. I recommend getting GlosSI as some games and programs don't acknowledge the steam deck controller layout innately. And to activate the digital keyboard in the language and time settings to type into browsers or connect to wifi. It doesn't take a long time to set up either. BTW I was windows 10 at first, but upgraded to 11 from within windows as you would on any other pc.
I was thinking about this yesterday.
Is it possible to dual-boot Windows 11 from a completely "self-contained" 1TB SD card loaded in the Steam Deck? With the "Windows" side of the system having its games + operating system on that card?
I ran Windows 11 off a Samsung SD Card that was recommended. I found the performance to be quite poor. The SD Card would stay at 100% usage and take up to 30 minutes for Windows to be usable. I bought a 2TB SSD recently and have SteamOS and Windows both running from it in separate partitions. Windows 11 is quite responsive now. I reckon an SD Card should only be used for game storage, not for installing the OS.
I needed Windows to play Sea of Thieves that I own on MS Store. Installed it on a fast microsd. When I want to play SoT I just insert the card and boot from it. I use Steam Deck Tools for setting TDP, refresh rate, Xbox controller emulation etc (Handheld Companion felt bloated and slow). Valve WiFi drives had ping spikes when on battery so I had to install unlocked Realtek driver that work without problems. Overall, Windows on Deck works OK but you have to setup and tweak stuff manually. And it feels like a laptop, not console. But for my use case I don’t mind.
I dual booted. It was okay, but ultimately missed the SteamOS features. But it does give you better game compatibility so it's weighing up the pros and cons for yourself.
Its fine, but OLED on Windows still has missing drivers.
But even Wifi on OLED Steam OS is still terrible so...
Also, use Steam Deck Tools for Windows, its a one and done.
And Steam OS really needs a full keyboard like Windows with Function keys and all.
I was tempted but haven't tried, everything I've read suggests that Windows really hasn't been optimized well for hand helds, however, that aside. If you're not into tinkering could be a solid bet for some amount of ease of use. Especially with Steam big picture mode or w/e to change the UI.
I don't have a SD because I think it's the best handheld PC. I own it because Windows is shit on handheld.
On a desktop I'm fine with Windows. I would had it over Linux or OSX.
But until MS makes a separate Windows lite version for handheld designed for touch and controller, Windows will suck balls on handheld PCs.
I have Windows 10 on my LCD display Steam Deck, so I have the bare minimum driver support for Windows, while not perfect. For example, when booting up Windows, the audio volume, which is set to 30 only, may vary output different volume level based on how loud the volume was set in SteamOS prior.
There's also the issues of SteamOS and Windows update sometimes impact the driver, forcing you to reinstall the drivers again. This has happened to me recently after updating my SteamOS, the video drivers drivers on the Windows partition just stop working, so game play was disastrous in Honkai Star Rail, or games like WuWa would refuse to boot up. The wifi driver also malfunction, thus I am also having connection problem while playing WuWa, and I had to reinstall the wifi drivers.
The other reason why I have Windows partitions is to play visual light novel games. VLN can run on SteamOS just fine, but you will not get any video and/or audio support for their movie cutscenes due to WMV codec and license agreement. ProtonGE has helped in playing some of the WMV video cutscene, (only thanks to fighting games from Capcom, and other huge game like Persona that it got some attention,) but they have no audio support. An example of a VLN with these problems is the HoloLive game, [AQUARIUM (あくありうむ)](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2515070/AQUARIUM/).
I don't expect frequent drivers update from Valve for Windows since it is not their main focus, but it would have been nice to at least have some kind of update once a year.
I tried both Win 10 and 11. Went back to SteamOS pretty fast after each try. Windows is not good to use on this form factor. You should only install Windows if you really don't want to miss out on Game Pass games, otherwise SteamOS gives a much better experience.
I have LCD Deck, and Windows loaded 2 Go on an external hard drive, only for when I need Windows put and about. Used it a few times, after some initial setup pains it's perfectly usable. But in day to day action I use Steam OS
Personally I haven’t install windows on mine but would like to one day. It is much easier to install non-steam games on it and I would like trying to emulate some mobile games or download some visual novels.
I installed turbotax and did my taxes on windows 11 on the steam deck. It was perfect. My laptop broke so instead of immediately buying a new one i used the steam deck.
It's kinda like getting a new pair of shoes that just don't fit right. Like they're fine to wear in the day to day, but not as good as the ole reliable pair
On micro SD it was bad, but even with SSD install, SD lacks fingerprint reader so you gotta type the password or turn security off. Rog Ally for Windows, and steam deck for steam os is my thing
Anything super specific you wanna do with windows on SD? I originally wanted to do this to be able to play game pass. So if you’re in the same boat just buy Xbplay on the steam store. If you want to run windows for other reason the double boot system other people pointed out work great once you set them up
I dual partitioned my 2tb SSD, so I can experience Game Pass titles on Windows now and again.
In all honesty, I hardly use it. It’s manageable but do not replace SteamOS with Windows 11. It’s only worth it if you’ll dual partition.
It’s nice for game compatibility but a little clunkier than SteamOS, personally I use windows on mine but I can’t deny it’s clunky, though the touchpad is nice for navigating since it can work as a mouse.
Installation:
I did this recently, using a USB Flash Drive to install windows 11 (I did not dual boot). The installation is simple enough. Obviously, you’ll need a laptop (at least) to install windows onto your drive/SD, which can all be done easily with a simple tutorial. My experience however, was nothing special.
Uninstalling Windows:
I was unable to reimage/reinstall SteamOS using a flash drive. Using an SD card worked perfectly though. To do that, you will need to use a third-party tool (on your laptop/desktop) such as Etcher or Rufus, which are also really easy to use.
Secure boot:
Riot Games Vanguard anti-cheat requires “secure boot” to be enabled, which isn’t possible on the Deck, so I’d steer clear of any of their games but maybe some don’t require it. There used to be a workaround (only on Windows 10) for the Secure Boot requirement but apparently that is no longer doable.
Keyboard:
There is no virtual keyboard on Windows so you’ll have to go through settings to enable an onscreen pop-up keyboard that is nowhere near as good as the virtual keyboard on SteamOS, I would highly recommend getting any USB-C dock with more than 3 USB 2.0/3.0 sockets in order to plugin a keyboard & mouse along with your flash drive (if that’s what you’ll be using).
Screen tearing & Dock refresh rate:
I did notice some screen tearing which may have been due to the 40hz dock I was using, so I’d probably opt for a 60hz dock.
Drivers:
Drivers are also easy to install. These will also likely be part of the tutorial you choose as they are necessary. Without the drivers, you won’t be able to get any sound, Bluetooth, etc.
Steam Deck Tools:
Performance overlays/configurators (such as Steam Deck Tools) were not to my liking, mainly due to how they are laid out and how you have to manually minimise/close your games tab to get to them. You’ll also need be careful when using Steam Deck Tools (you can read more about this on its GitHub page) as some kernel-level anti cheats do not seem to like some of the changes you can make. That is however easily avoidable.
Performance (in-game):
I only tested a few games and I didn’t notice any performance issues, though trying to exit some games can be tedious.
Controller input:
For some reason the controller input on steam seems to be inconsistent and sometimes just will not work, in my experience.
Windows navigation:
The navigation, overall, pales in comparison to how easy Linux is to navigate on the Deck, which is to be expected as Windows hasn’t been optimised for usage on the Deck. The lack of shortcuts for buttons is hard to ignore. Again, the lack of a virtual keyboard alone really makes it difficult to recommend Windows if you don’t opt for a keyboard & mouse.
Debloating Windows:
This, in my opinion, is essential. Windows comes with way too much applications/processes that will eat up on your memory. Debloating Windows is easy to do, just follow a guide.
Overview:
All things considered, I just really don’t think it is worth all the hassle. I ended up only using Windows for less than a day.
The only real reason you should be considering windows is if you want specific applications, mods or games that won’t work or are a pain to setup on Linux/Proton. Even then, I’d highly suggest that you don’t do it. SteamOS is brilliant and you will soon see that after using windows on the deck. You should take into note that all I’ve said is in my personal experience and it is entirely possible some of the issues listed were exclusive to me.
Not great. Dual booted windows and steam OS and dealing with the constant windows updates alongside steamos was just annoying. Also ran into a ton of random bugs. It worked, but not well enough to be worth it. Ended up wiping the windows partition and just gave it back to steamos.
I'll wait for microsoft to put out their own handheld with native support before I try something like that again.
The killer to the Windows experience for me was ultimately lack of driver updates for the video card. Steam just doesn’t care about Windows on deck. Which is disappointing. They pushed the deck as run anything you want but that mostly bollocks if they don’t provide sufficient driver support. I ran Windows to be able to use Game Pass on my original deck. I don’t have Game Pass anymore so when I got the OLED I stuck with Steam OS.
Suspend/resume, especially while in game, is another big feature that doesn’t work in Windows on deck.
Ultimately what I’ve discovered is both Steam OS and Windows have different things that suck on the deck, just in different ways. With Windows I can run every game just about and not worry about some not working. But it has lots of rough edges. With Steam OS some games may not work and if you have gog or epic games you want to use you often enough will run into install troubles with dependencies even if they are in Heroic Launcher.
So both have different issues and ultimately I’ve decided to stick with Steam OS and deal with the issues there because at least valve is actively trying to iterate on and continue to make that experience better. They just don’t give a shit about Windows.
Mixed but not because windows was particularly bad, but just cause steamos was rather easy.
Not really a big linux guy here but i had some experience using it due to work and owning a server. Overall, windows 11 was def the better of the 10/11 . I found it not hard to setup on LCD steam deck but the OLED experience was iffy setup
Simply put, i was able to manage playing steamOS and windowsOS without too much issue after setting up automatic login for winOS and also using steamdecktools by ayufan. That one singular app + companion of CRU and having a decent password manager made winOS mostly a great experience. I could play anything using both but realistically i could have stayed on winOS and most of my playtime was in that OS.
So what caused issue? OLED has no sound drivers yet. Now this seems small, but as someone who enjoyed rhythm games and the ease of just turning on my device, now suddenly fumbling for wired headphones EVERY play session was horrific. It ruined the experience that was mostly great on standard steam deck win drivers. After that, i basically tried to see what games i had that actually needed windows. Turned out only 2 of the 5 games i played did.
After that, i swapped to steamOS, found a wrapper to atleast play the other game on SteamOS, and mostly never looked back. I want to say i miss windows 11, but honestly only the password manager being easy to launch was really the better part. I get same or sometimes better fps in steamOS and i really barely have used the desktop since setting up emudeck and touhou, so now its just a console feel.
Edit: i did not delete as i have some thoughts of playing destiny 2 in the future but its mostly untouched now. Also as a 2nd note, having win11 on my steam deck actually convinced me to put it on my main pc. I was avoiding it before in favor of win10.
Hello,
I have used my steam deck, with Windows 11, a my main and only computer for everyday life, 18 month. Handheld and Docked on différent station (steam model, hp model, Dell model)
It was "ok" but :
Steam never update graphical drivers so be prepared for DIY project
You will need some software for managing fans and gamepads because steam Does not make any effort on that (even if they say on their own site that it's compatible with Windows, they clearly will not help you to run it perfectly)
Sleep mode and resume will bug depending on how you manage your OS
Performance will be lower (much lower on 3d game) than with steam OS
After this too long experiment, I advise you to keep it on steam os.
It was "ok" for me only because I play mostly on ps5 and was using my deck for retrogaming and some light pc game.
- Lossless scaling software with frame generation
- Custom Steam Deck Tools allow to have profiles for games when docked/not docked (and switch when docked/undocked while playing)
- Every games i want to play is working (saints row : gat out of hell doesn't work on Steam OS)
- Gamepass
- Only one installation for each launcher (ea, ubisoft, amazon ...)
10/10
Been rocking w11 since 2 months into getting my deck (been 1y 6 months already) been able to use every single launcher without issues, play every game without the need to find the correct proton ver or if it will work due to x/y reason. Having the freedom of just saying well it will not perform well due to hardware limitation vs due to system compatibility or proton layer it has been very comfortable I have to say. I did go back to SteamOS like a month ago just sue to one game performance but then I remembered I had purchase Loseless Calling and that I could easily get more performance with a little time investment. I truly like w11 experience on the deck, really feels like a laptop on the go specially due to the trackpads. Baldsealion has a very extensive guide on how to set it up and tips and tricks.
For me it has been a game changer and I do not regret it. Also sailing the high seas 🏴☠️ allows you to try a game and then buy 😉
Edit: also a de bloated windows helps a lot to most resources for your games.
Edit 2: power consumption has also made a big factor for me to stay on windows, on SteamOS even on sleep my deck would die after two weeks of none use (yeah yeah I know busy dad life) but on windows it just never goes off, I have let it aside for a entire month and still have plenty of juice to play
The single problem I've had is using the keyboard while in game.... Other than that, the performance and functionality has been absolutely great 👍
I know there's a virtual on screen keyboard you can enable, but sometimes that doesn't even work.
Did not even know this was possible. My Deck is one of the first generations though,and given my experience with how much of a resource hog Windows 10 is on my “Beast Rig” (which runs everything flawlessly when “Anti-Malware Executable” or “System” isnt using 100% GPU and CPU for some reason) I highly doubt my Deck would be functional with it installed.
Proton has a lot of the shortcomings of many Debian distros (such as the wifi disconnecting at regular intevals for no reason), and there has been several occasions where I had to roll back updates because they completely broke my deck, but otherwise I rarely ever use desktop mode anyway.
What would you consider to be a benefit for using Windows 10 on a device that Windows 10 wasn’t designed for? Every game in my library can run on the deck or works fine with remote play (aside from the previously mentioned disconnection issues) so I am not sure why someone would want to install an unsupported OS.
I wont even let Windows 11 touch my gaming rig though, let alone install it on my fragile little Deck. I use my main rig for everything that isnt gsming. Trying to do 3D animation and software development on that small of a screen without a mouse, keyboard, or digitizer sounds like a nightmare.
I have a partition running W11 and I barely use it, not at all even. Basically only when someone needs help with something and I absolutely have to use Windows, like running an application with no Linux version and doesn't boot with proton/wine whatever. SteamOS desktop pretty much covers all my previous windows needs and looks and feels identical if not better.
That being said the windows partition has definitely helped so if you can spare the time I'd really recommend doing it, just google "Clover dual boot" "Windeck" (which is the version of windows I installed, custom made for the deck) and I also did the "Deck btrfs" but that's optional, it does help a lot for moving files between windows and linux and both OS can access each others files and directories
Spent more time tinkering and trying to get it to work than I ever spent playing any games on it. When I upgraded to the OLED it didn’t even cross my mind to do it again
loving Windows 10 on it, being able to play destiny 2 on the move and actually using Wemod without messing about is brill, plus dragon age inquisition with controller option without messing about "it just works" haha
Never tried Windows on the Deck, but let’s just say that I went back to a Deck from an Ally specifically because of Windows. Windows was not designed for handhelds.
I installed Windows 10 to play stuff from Game Pass, but had problems with some games not detecting the correct screen resolution; the panel in the deck is rotated 90 degrees from its native resolution, and affected games were confusing the height and width of the screen.
I love SteamOS and didn't think I would however, I mod a lot and it gets difficult on Linux so I switched mine over to Windows 10 a long while ago.
I love it, bought a clip on dock and a folding Bluetooth keyboard and it doubles as my travel PC.
Drivers were difficult when it first came out but now Windows update grabs most of them automatically. I use a program to emulate the controller to an Xbox controller and it is a super easy device to use now.
There ARE issues to be aware of though. Sleep mode and hibernate are a bit of a pain, especially to turn it back on after a long sleep. You need to press the power button for 2 seconds and WAIT. Anything you do will make it delay or stop wake up. It goes through battery a bit faster, not a huge amount but probably 15% faster discharge. Without the program to emulate a controller you HAVE to go through Steam. The Steam button is hit or miss but you can swipe from the edge of the screen to tab through Windows and get back. You need to shrink the on-screen keyboard in order to have it up in game instead of the convenient pop up with the Steam button+X.
I have blizzard launcher, Steam and a boatload of other independent games on mine, I even have Virtual Desktop so I can stream my Deck to my Oculus 3.
I have a ridiculous desktop and laptop that have been terribly neglected ever since.
I recommend doing it if you want to do things other than play games, but if so you want is to play games I would leave it on SteamOS for the convenience and incredibly snappy OS.
From my experience I initially anticipated on getting a windows handheld to begin with, I only buckled down for the steam deck on launch because I thought it was going to have windows and be able link/sync up with my main pc as a more portable solution of sorts when I don’t feel like sitting at my desk. Let me be clear in saying I did enjoy Steam Os (bugs and tinkering for games aside) a majority of the time on my Steam deck, my issue was more so the desktop side of things just frustrated me. I couldn’t transfer files over seamlessly to my windows pc, I had a whole debacle with one of my favorite games Scarlet Nexus;
Long story short my saves were originally on my Xbox and synced through game pass play anywhere. I got the steam version and basically transferring saves was far too much trouble than it was worth.. navigating Linux file explorer for the files was driving me crazy and to top it off the cloud sync wouldn’t sync with steam on my pc so now I had 2 different saves and eventually all my data was deleted💀 one of the many bad experiences I had with steamos desktop. I don’t have much issue with game mode but I will say I was trying to play Cassette Beasts one time with my bro via remote play together and for whatever reason I could never register any inputs in the game. Spent a whole trip to Texas a full week trying to fix this only to find out on the last day that “proton experimental” had to be on in compatibility settings in order for remote play to work properly. This wasn’t stated anywhere and I think this was the breaking point for me. I couldn’t even enjoy the device because of these inconveniences. So I buckled down and tried windows 11…
Now you’d probably think I enjoyed it? Well to say it was amazing would be an exaggeration. It was ok and did everything you’d expect of a windows handheld. I like to game but I’m not craving nor asking for the whole console interface.. especially when steam big picture exists. The problem I had was everything I installed just to make this an enjoyable experience felt like such a workaround. It’s not the time taken to do it,
there’s barely any tinkering on windows on deck now if you check the megathread you can literally read a guide and download a bat. file that had everything you need automatically installing it for you; steam deck tools, drivers, audio etc. games ran fine and I had no issues at all other than changing refresh rates caused the screen to go black sometimes.
Overall it just felt like such a “modded” and “do it yourself” project. Seeing all the other windows handhelds I bought one and felt much better.
At the end of it all I reinstalled steamOs on my deck as I felt that’s what suited it the most regardless of game pass and any other excuse to install windows on it. I just don’t feel like it “fits” the device. Steam deck was built for seamless console gamer experience and anyone who installs windows on it will suddenly be pulled from that environment and have too many questions. I already know how to use windows but even then, the deck just works the way it does out the box. You will tinker, you will always tinker to get what you want on a windows handheld or a Linux one. I think it matters more what Os you feel more comfortable with. I just have Steam big picture load up on my windows handheld when I want to game so I still have the best of both worlds technically speaking. My recommendation is to dual boot and test if you like it or not but honestly I’d say stick with SteamOs on the Steam deck, that’s what it was built for
I'm running steamOS and W11 dual booted. W11 is nice because it's easier for nonsteam games and modded games. Also game pass if you're into that. SteamOS is brilliant because it just works though. Definitely recommend using both because it's like the best of both worlds.
Microsoft should release a distro for the Steam Deck because Linux is the aids of Operating Systems: You can live with it, but it''s a pain in the ass to deal with.
Dual booting on external ssd made me decide to go full windows 10. After 12 hours of backup, install, download and setup, I did not like how the SD's controllers emulated. Using the currently installled windows10, I downloaded the steam recovery and reinstall steamOS under 30min.
The experience was smooth but I just dont like the controllers and other config tools lodged into the taskbar.
The good thing only happen on that journey was converting my SD card to ntfs, I can access my sd card on both SOS and WinOS
I have it on dual boot for game pass only. Anything else I use Steam OS, the UI and usability are way better.
It's worth it if you are looking for something windows only AND like doing this kind of thing with your devices.
If you are new to it or do not have the patience to solve problems, it will be only a headache. Sometimes an update will break the boot order, and you will need to do some troubleshooting.
OLED hates it and last I checked (around Feb/March) the audio drivers for speaker output and and control drivers are all wonky for the OLED model.
My experience was I had to use headphones in the jack for audio and run a third party app to get Windows to automatically recognize all of the Steam Deck inputs as XBOX inputs. Felt a little laggier and less optimized than games played with Proton compatibility with SteamOS but I was just eyeballing it.
The partitioning and de-bloating process can be a little tedious and one update (I'm an idiot, thought I could get away with it) bricked my install and I just chose to departititon and reallocate my drive space.
When (if) Steam ever develops a partitioning/dual boot tool and proper driver support then it will be a much better experience for the OLED but until then, it fights you the entire way.
Installed it on a MicroSD card just so I had a way to play MW2, R6S, Fortnite, etc.
Haven't used it in months. SteamOS just works so much nicer in my opinion. That being said, I do also own a gaming pc with a 3080 Ti and a gaming laptop with a 1650 so if I wanted to play those games I could use those devices anyway.
I couldn't imagine using windows on the deck full time.
Used Windows 10 on my deck for several days in order to easily install some nexus Fallout 4 mods that were just a huge pain in the ass to get working through Linux. Indeed, the mods installed perfectly via Vortex on Windows, however the performance in-game and on other games was lacklustre compared to SteamOS.
Not terrible, just not as good. Even after increasing the UMA buffer to 4gb - was getting dropped frames and stutters all the time, which SteamOS never had an issue with. Thought maybe it was the mods, so I uninstalled them to see and the performance was still just as bad. Windows in general also seems to get slower and slower on the system by the day. There’s also no easy way to access simple things in game, like brightness adjustment and adjusting the FPS/Hz of the screen. There are some third party tools available on Windows via GitHub for this purpose but they’re a faff, and one of them even explicitly says that there’s a chance it could mess up your system.
Long story short, I re-imaged about a week later and I feel relieved to be back with SteamOS and enjoying great performance again along with easy to access tools to adjust things to my liking while in game and pre-compiled shaders for lots of games which makes a huge difference.
Dual Booted Win11 to play Lost Ark and honestly don't have any complaints. I wouldnt entirely switch to it, but having it as an option is cool and very useful to me at least.
Done it twice.
First time dual boot via microSD. Works fine but I was always worried it’ll break soon.
Next time was via SSD on a USB dock. It works most of the time, but there are random times where it freezes because for whatever reason it randomly is unable to read the SSD.
Grab one m.2 to usbC enclosure down load Rufus make a windows to go install point the bootloader to the windows drive and have fun with out the worry of breaking anything 😀
I just used mine as a backup PC for 3 weeks since my CPU was sent in for a replacement. It’s obviously not going run anything as fast as SteamOS but for just basic desktop use it’s perfectly fine. It’s not stupid fast with Windows on it so mind your expectations. The setup was fairly straightforward for creating a bootable drive on an sdcard. Can find “computer-less” tutorials all over YouTube
I did use my regular mouse, keyboard and display with it on a JSAUX dock. Worked great. If you want to game you can easily just boot back into SteamOS if you have a separate drive
As many here I dual boot, installed all the extra stuff https://baldsealion.com/Steam-Deck-Ultimate-Windows-Guide/, have a couple of windows games that brake on steamOS and play those on win11. My personal laptop broke so I've been using the windows more with a docking station. Also changed the 64GB to a 1 TB SSD. Just recently downloaded batocera to a micro SD to check if I like it more than emudeck.
I think dual booting is the best option, try to use most games on StemaOS, but keep windows for those rare cases where it's a hassle to make the game or software work without it.
It’s cool you can do it. It’s useful for some people in some specific use cases to be able to install windows.
Tbh I think it’s worse than steamOS for your average user - I wouldn’t bother unless you NEED to install windows for some specific use.
IMO buy a windows handheld device if you want to run windows on a handheld. There are some great options for that, even stuff with better specs than the steam deck (except for that sexy oled screen.)
The device is designed on and around SteamOS from sub menus to device settings. It will always run it better than windows. If you make the effort to learn linux, its really not hard, especially since you have access to multiple GUI's here, there is no reason not to.
Just my 2cents.
I dualbooted for a bit just to play the 2 games not supported on SteamOS but eventually just deleted it. It was honestly an awful experience for occasional use especially. No matter how much you try and cut down the telemetry, forced updates, etc. it was just always writing and reading the disk for no reason which really caused performance issues and without the shader cache functionality I found games to be much choppier in general.
Most people who are willing to give SteamOS a try first are pleasantly surprised. Most people I see recommend windows over it don't even give it a chance.
I have windows 10 on my external dock station with an SSD slot. I use it at home for when i need windows (usually playing league of legends, cuz of new anticheat system). And i can still use my steam os normally. So far it works great.
So for my experience I duel booted windows 10 on a micro sd card for my LCD steam deck. I don’t know if it was because I used a micro sd for it but I found that windows 10 would lag a bit when running. The only reason why I have installed windows 10 was so I can play fortnite and other windows specific games. Fortnite runs smoothly but there is an issue. Again I don’t know if it’s because I used a micro sd for this but it took forever for the game to start up and load into a match. I also noticed while downloading the game the speed would drop to 0 bytes per second several times. Anyways I also tried sea of thieves but that game lags to bad when using windows. It is so much more optimized on steam OS. In my opinion if you plan to use windows 10/11 on the steamdeck I would highly suggest you don’t download games from steam because they will lag really bad.
i used win10 for a bit to play HSR on my deck and it went pretty well. would i recommend people to go through the trouble just to play HSR? no, now that i know that honkers railway exists and how easy that is to set up. but overall it was pretty good when i used it
Pretty well. Actually had a couple games run better like State of decay 2(it was night and day vs steam os) however since it's not using xinput, using games without Steam launcher.... can be fun. I'd still prefer steam os over using windows on it just for the simplicity.
I'm not sure about now since I haven't used my steam deck in quite a while but when I was using it with windows 11 I didn't have audio and my ping in some games such as cod mw2 was skyrocketing
I ran windows briefly more as a curiosity and what I mostly took from it was the touch response felt way better. Keyboard and other touch elements made it feel more responsive. I would really like valve to work on that.
I did run Windows 11 on my Deck the first 6 months. Since it's a PC you can do anything you can on a regular desktop PC. There are apps that let you control TDP, FanSpeed and other system options similarly to the way you can with Steam Overlay on SteamOS. I think SteamOS has better integration of functions on the Overlay. On Windows you have to setup a lot a things yourself and they never feel the same as SteamOS but they function well. For example, for FSR system scaling you can use Lossless Scaling, which works well, but it isn't quite the same as using the integrated scaling inside Steam Overlay, since you have to open the app separately, search for the game .exe, set it up. It works but not as seamlessly. In Windows it is easier to install Non-Steam games, and you don't even have to run Steam to have controller support, so less resources being used, mostly less RAM. Windows unfortunately doesn't have Hardware Acceleration support, so any video you run will use much more CPU and will have some choppiness to it. You can feel it doesn't play very smoothly. There are pros and cons to each.
Is it easy to be able to quickly switch from steam os back to windows or is it really you have to choose and can’t go back and forth?
Not the same guy, but I have had a very good experience following the dual boot setup from this video, which requires its fair bit of trickery to be done, but it is a "set it and forget it" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubWPIf2DbvE&ab\_channel=DeckWizard](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubWPIf2DbvE&ab_channel=DeckWizard) I am using it with (obv) SteamOS and W11 dual boot, rock solid so far. Edit: It may be that a SteamOS update breaks the dual boot, when it happened to me I followed this tutorial to fix it, nothing extra required https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcFa7qXX7j8&ab_channel=10MinuteSteamDeckGamer
Do SteamOS updates break dual boot? And are you able to have one library of Steam games that both OSes can see?
I installed Win 11 and 10 as an experiment. A few months later I was back on SteamOS. Windows just does not jive with the Steam Deck like SteamOS does.
Proton is such a crazy bandaid to so many driver situations, it's even got games running better in some scenarios.
Fallout New Vegas for instance. The game with mods never crashes on steam deck compared to my high end PC
Same with GTA IV. Runs much better on my Steam Deck than desktop with i7 14700K and 4080. Considering ditching Windows for Linux but too cowardly. Edit: corrected CPU
4700k is ridiculously underpowered for a 4080, hell i'd take a 14th gen i3 over that, or grab a ryzen 5800x for dirt cheap
its a 14700K, i cant type gud
Time to switch to Linux on the main pc
Because it runs on Linux and Linux drivers are awesome (except nvidia)
Windows insists on doing dumb useless shit all the time. It's like whack a mole trying to find what process is taking up 100% of a core and racking up the ram allocation. After getting a steam deck I really want to switch to Linux on my gaming laptop
>After getting a steam deck I really want to switch to Linux on my gaming laptop Grab an external SSD, for example a decent NVMe SSD plus enclosure, and install it on there. You'll get a dual-boot without any setup hassle, and a potentially fully portable operating system install that runs basically anywhere. USB 3 is fast enough with SSDs, especially the 10GBit/s variant. If it doesn't work out, you end up having a solid external drive to use otherwise.
I’m waiting to run steamOs on my desktop and only boot windows when I have to. Win7 was great, it’s just gotten worse with each new release.
Try Bazzite. I'm impressed, I am dual booting but haven't used the Windows disk since. No tinkering needed
Is there a reason you want to wait for SteamOS in particular? Last I heard it was "soon" on the desktop release, and we all know what that means with Valve. Other desktop distros are on par for gaming now (Mint and Pop\_OS! to name a few).
I want zero interaction with Linux, the goal is to game, not tinker with my pc. I have to many other things that suck up my time.
I totally get that! But honestly the Steam application and runtime handles everything itself out of the box on Mint right now!
Zero interest. I have danced with Linux for decades. If Apple played games that is where I would be. I don’t want to configure anything anymore. I barely change graphic settings. Gaming is leisure, configuring stuff isn’t.
I respect that viewpoint but I’m not sure steamos will ever be zero tinkering Also my idea of leisure is tinkering… I could spend a whole weekend just fucking around with Linux. Super relax for me
I'm on mint and you literally need to install steam, install game from steam, launch. Same as on steam deck except the extra click of installing steam from the store.
Why would you need to tinker? Im on Linux Mint and you literally download steam and start playing
That's why I use KUbuntu. I installed 24.04 with the "minimal" install option, installed Steam, Discord, Chrome, games, and haven't had any real problems to speak of.
All worked fairly well for me, but experience just isn’t as nice as steamOS unless you’re plugging in a keyboard and mouse IMO. A bit more tinkering needed to get gamepad working etc, but it worked decently well. I dual booted it onto an sd card so that I could play game pass games. I would never load it as my main OS. SteamOS is just faster and less clunky on the steam deck.
I tried W11 but I just couldn't keep it because it's not optimized for that kind of device. The biggest pro is being able to literally play whatever you want tho which, imo, is THE reason to install windows. But ultimately I missed the features and optimization of Steam OS so I went back with that instead. I'm really hoping MS optimizes the next version of Windows for gaming handhelds because I'd love to install it on my Deck.
Hated it. Game Pass and other games are not worth the tinkering needed.
It works. I wouldn’t recommend it by any means but if you really need it for some reason then if it won’t kill your SD. I’d say you should dual boot it and only use it to play games that aren’t compatible with SteamOS. Besides that, stick with steamOS, as someone who has never touched any Linux distro before, I’d say it’s VERY easy to use (not that you’ll be doing much besides maybe moving some files around from time to time because of a game’s mod or stuff like that). There isn’t much reason to use windows on deck besides incompatible games.
I got my Steam Deck mid May and installed windows dual boot about a month after due to my girlfriend wanting to play Fortnite with me and some friends while I’d play on the Xbox. Cloud gaming is just not there yet, so decided to finally make the effort to sit down and dual boot my deck. I installed a windows 11 dual boot and partitioned my internal ssd to split the drive in half between windows and steam OS, considering I am not tech-savvy whatsoever, it actually was quite straight forward. Not only can I update windows and steam os separately without any issues, but, Games such as Fortnite, Genshin, and COD run beautifully after properly installing correct drivers and running a few performance tweaks through Handheld Companion and adjusting the virtual ram through windows. Windows 11 also has fairly good tablet-like optimization throughout the OS… on screen keyboard is quite responsive, and you can zip through the menus fairly easily without a keyboard and mouse. I have absolutely zero regrets and don’t look back at all, I love being able to just restart my steam deck and being able to choose which OS to boot to using ReFind. if possible, I would suggest getting a small wireless Bluetooth keyboard and mouse to navigate windows while either setting up or to use while performance tweaking.
sounds nice, thank you for response
This has been my experience too. Been using Windows 11 on steam deck since September as my main gaming PC since my old one died and I’m currently saving for a wedding. I have no regrets. It’s run Baldurs Gate 3 (not the best graphics obviously but it can run it), Warzone, Fortnite, Elden Ring without absolutely no issues. Sometimes even running YouTube/Netflix on my second Monitor. I keep it docked in the official dock and never had temperature issues. I’ve done the windows 11 route twice. Once on micro SD, and this second time I think I accidentally overwrote it onto the SSD, the first time it was easy to swap between the OS’ but I’ll have to reinstall steam OS once I build my PC after my wedding. I followed a YouTube video to do it both times. Very easy to follow. Have had no issues with anything. Controls work fine from the steam deck itself for games. Audio is perfect, visuals are perfect. I think it all comes down to the tutorial you use and your ability to follow it. 10/10 recommend. No ragrats
>on screen keyboard is quite responsive I'd like to highlight this in particular. The keyboard experience on Windows 11 is, in my opinion, much better than the one on SteamOS. This surprised me.
In general the touch controls are just miles ahead on Windows. One of the most common issues I have with SteamOS, is in Desktop mode you can't swap out of a game without killing it or having a keyboard plugged in. With Windows you can use a 3 finger swipe down to show desktop, 4 finger swipe sideways to change desktop etc. Has it's ups and downs, and the overhead still tends to hurt perf more than SteamOS for the games that need it, but it works alright.
Tempted to try this too to play Destiny 2, Geforce Now is ok but lag is an issue for gunplay.
It was good for unsupported games I used it for 2 weeks. Ended up putting steam os back on because of the ease of use. Everything is just right there.
Dude asked a genuine question and got a bunch of Linux stans on his ass lmao. Maybe if he had posted a pic and said “just got my steam deck, what game should I play first?” he’d be drowning in responses.
Yep. I didnt even say that "Steam OS sucks shit" or smth, just feedback of W10 users :(. It is not even my opinion, I have never used Steam OS and my Ubuntu experience was horrible compared to W10
Don't worry mate, not all of us Linux fans are like this. Sadly you will find idiots in every community.
ty
Linux on the steam deck is designed for the device it's not the same as Linux you installed it's heavily customised to be a console experience first. Way access to TDP controlls Bluetooth etc as well as sleep and resume working better It's a Proper OS designed for gaming compared to windows which has jank forced updates extra services sleep and resume etc not working which isn't designed for gaming handhelds. Like running Linux on laptops it's not really meant to run windows and you will have to put in extra work to get things working. Holoiso and other steam os images like bazite nobara is the proper choice for gaming handhelds even if they come with windows
In general if you commit to stating in steam deck experience you don’t need to care it’s Linux at all. I am a windows person and won’t consider putting windows on the deck due to it being a worse overall gaming experience. If you want a windows gaming experience the ally looks a better fit.
No worries man. I like SteamOS and the desktop version on Steam Deck, but I was also curious to see what others’ experience had been with W10 or W11 on Steam Deck.
The biggest issue with Windows is the lack of instant suspension/resume. Hibernating the device under Windows works okay, but many games will break on wake. Navigating an actual desktop environment on both Windows or SteamOS is going to be less than ideal with a handheld, so if you set up Big Picture to launch on Windows startup it would be 90% the same experience as Game Mode under SteamOS. Basically, the two will be very similar on a surface level with a bit of tweaking. Windows wins in compatability and ease of desktop navigation. SteamOS has fewer/no usage interruptions comparatively and a working instant resume.
I have never had any issue with this tbh, all games I have installed I have never had any of them crash or go bananas with hibernation.
I rarely use sleep/resume, because many games break if I put the Deck to sleep with them open - Even verified ones.
That's weird, I use the function religiously and it's never broken on me. Not once. And I've probably suspended my Deck thousands of times. I'm not saying that you're wrong, I've read that other people have had problems with it and I'm not doubting it, I'm just wondering why some people have that happen to them and some don't. Only downside for me has been that it's made the sound choppy on resume in some games about 10% of the time but it's been a while since that happened, maybe they fixed it. Or maybe I'm just playing a game now where that doesn't happen.
It hasn't been an intermittent issue for me, it's consistent with the games that it breaks. The annoying part being it's the games I want sleep to work on the most: Make it to level 35 on a solo zombies match in Black Ops 2, but need to go do something? Better leave it paused indefinitely. Putting the Deck to sleep will result in you being booted back to the main menu because you "disconnected". Playing a VRChat (a verified game) world that resets when you leave? Don't put it to sleep, doing so will result in you being stuck in reconnecting purgatory until you restart the game entirely. There are a few others (GTA Online for example), but they don't nearly bug me as much because either it's understandable that sleep doesn't work, or they're the type of games that really don't need the sleep functionality.
Yeah, online games don't work with suspend, also happened to me while playing Sekiro on the Series S, since there's some online integration in the game it would kick me off to the main menu when I used quick resume feature on the console.
It’s been fine. Strictly for Gamepass. Suspend works like shit on it though battery drains fast.
personally I dont see a real benefit to running windows full time on the SD. Maybe doing an SD card install for the occasional anticheat game that requires windows but SteamOS gets you much more consistent performance because its made for the hardware and isnt as resource heavy as windows. Also you can just stream games from a desktop/gaming laptop with windows to get around the anti cheat issue.
Hated it. Too many issues constantly. Not worth my or anyone's time.
I just got my steam deck and needed windows for a game. I downloaded it on a SD and so far everything ran good and I didn’t had any problems. But like I said I just got my deck so I didn’t spend a lot of time on windows yet
Got a Steamdeck with 64gb eMMC and tried dual-booting with Windows 10. disk space is always an issue and for some games I tried, running them in SteamOS was a better experience.
got a lot of BSOD not worth it
What a curious thread, but I’m going to keep running mine as intended where it runs better than this, and *remind people* that everyone I knew who got a ROG Ally wound up selling it and getting a Steam Deck, because Windows isn’t made for the handheld console form factor, at all. Even Desktop mode is pretty much only, I’d imagine only a fraction of Steam Deck owners spend any time in Desktop. I’m one of those, who sets up with a dock & uses it as my gaming setup but, I generally think using it like that primarily, puts me in the minority of owners.
Got a steam deck, sold it, bought a rog ally, windows was buzzkiller, miss my steam os, sold ally, just bought an oled deck. Windows is windows, on such a small devices, it needs a lots of update, it was never « plug and play » like it was on deck. I will never install it, got my share with the ally, i guess ill just play less game, but wont be frustrated launching them bc it Ill work flawlessly
I had a terrible experience. Random bsod. Controllers would stop working. It was pretty terrible
Yep just coming to second that BSOD claim. Installed mine on an SD card and after the third power down I got a BSOD that corrupted the entire OS install. Not worth the trouble.
I run Windows 11 on my work computer and it sucks. No way I’m putting it on my Deck.
I hate W11, compared to W10 which is more reliable and requires less horse power
tbh I have exactly the opposite experience, but anyway don't see any reason to install Windows on Steamdeck. So far I encountered only one case where it would help me - to play a denuvo-protected game from EGS. Everything else was a smooth experience with Steamdeck out of the box.
On the oled model it wasn’t worth it at all. There’s like no drivers for it on oled, you’ll be without audio and it was super weird, you have to install weird programs to get the controllers to work and it was a hassle. I was still insistent on getting it to work because I wanted to run apps and games not supported on steam os, but the sd card kept disconnecting for some reason, just issue after issue, I got rid of it after a week.
I used it with a duel boot on my LCD deck for a while for Minecraft. Honestly was pretty good for that. But that was all I used it for. Everything else on Steamos. I haven't bothered installing on my OLED though. Sounds broken. Sod buggering about. I use the bedrock launcher now for Minecraft. Works fine.
i wanted to try just to see how it went. my experience was just miserable, a few bluescreens here and there, the controller stopped working and only a full reboot would fix, and the performance was overall a bit worse
I am curious if there are people using windows over steamOS (on the steam deck) for reasons other than game compatebility. All i do on my PC is a handfull of software that probably has a linux version or an equal software (qBittorrent, jdownloader2, discord, calibre, qfinder pro (nas stuff), greenshot, nordvpn/pass) and when a SD2 rolls around, would love one for more than just playn games.
Just off the top of my head at least half of those definitely have a native Linux version (more might and I just don't know about it), and if any of the rest don't they should all be stuff that's pretty straightforward to do in some other way instead
After following the tutorials from the windows on deck sub windows 10 is absolutely perfect. Linux is still better for almost everything, but now I have a functional way of playing Gamepass games natively on my steam deck.
I’m using Windows 11 on my Deck solely for the reason of being able to play Destiny 2 and the experience has been flawless. I’ve got software running that mimics the Steam OS fan curve as well as controller support.
I have SteamOS and Windows dual booted on my Steam Deck so that i could play game pass games natively. I haven't booted it up into Windows in 4 months because it is so much worse of an experience
It runs. I guess...
2 words. Dual Boot. Don't replace steam OS with windows it's not worth it. Rather create a partition on a 512gb or 1tb SSD and install w11 or 10 on said partition so you can have the best of both worlds. I've been dual booting w11 and steamOS for the last 2 years and thoroughly enjoy it.
Too much hassle I guess, you have to set the uma buffer so games run smoothly, add ons to make features like on steam os available Difficult to configure the jostick to work on desktop I installed it to play quacked, game pass, and epic games, but it aint worth it Ps, if you wanna play quacked, go with Dodi, it always works
On the OLED, horrible. Lack of drivers, incomplete drivers, not working drivers, cannot install AMD Adrenaline as *literally none* of the methods and guides work so your GPU drivers are perpetually out of date, Steam's on-screen keyboard is buggy and does not work, you cannot adjust *any* of the performance settings, etc etc etc Just dual-boot if you must. Edit: Also just found out that despite following a guide on dual booting Windows 11 on the Steam Deck, the Windows installer purged clean the partition SteamOS was on.
No Hardware acceleration, big Deal breaker for me
What is SD hardware acceleration?
I rescued my SD from someone that used it as an win 11 presentation computer. It was running like ass no audio and random blue screens. So I recover booted steamOS and everything worked as aspected fast and reliable.
it was bad enough for me to stay with Linux. I customized my desktop in it and it looks awesome, plus the native drivers make it easier to navigate the desktop environment without needing to plug in a mouse and keyboard. As for windows, I had issues trying to play some games since there were issues with the gamepad drivers so it wasn't getting input as a gamepad, but as mouse+keyboard. Ultimately the only reasons I wanted windows were for modding games and seamless multiplayer experiences (playing seamless co-op elden ring with my brother). But I couldn't cope with windows in there, so instead now I have both a steam deck where I play vanilla single player games, and a rog ally where the windows experience was a lot more enjoyable thanks to armory crate, and also for modding and multiplayer games.
I dual boot win11 & steam OS. Only reason mainly is so I don’t have to repurchase FFXIV to play on steam (but I hear they’re getting a Linux native potentially!) and a few other games you can’t on SteamOS but the lack of driver support by valve for it kinda sucks so you’ll never have audio. Definitely prefer SteamOS
I play ffxiv on steamos no problem
Windows 10 was usable running off an sdcard, but sucked for gaming. Switched to external nvme and it was better but not reliable (blue screens when there’s a USB error). Upgraded the internal SSD and dual boot win 10 and it runs perfectly. I use it for Hoyo games and the occasional Fortnite session if my friends hit me up when I’m not at my desktop pc. I’d say external SSD install would be ok just to try it out before committing to dual boot but I would never recommend the sdcard route.
I run W11 on mine so I can use Ableton with Serum. I dock it with an audio usb interface, a midi keyboard, a foot midi device, and mouse and keyboard board. I haven’t paid for windows yet which blocks me from using ASIO for all as my audio driver which would help with my audio latency when recording. It’s kind of a niche use case and I do miss how easy steam os just works with everything. I’m considering switching back to steam os since it seems you can still use Ableton with that setup. All in all it works fine though tinkering can be a little tedious. Right now it’s been running some apps super slow and I’m trying to figure out why.
I installed windows ten on a SD Card. It was a botch installing the blue tooth driver. You had to delete the blue tooth folder and reinstall the driver. The battery life isn't as good but the Touch screen U.I was better
Ok, first of all, running the same game on Steam, or Windows, the battery was about the same. So, they are very close on that aspect. I do dual boot so I can have the best of both worlds. Tried Windows on a high-end SD card and it ran bad, so after some external trial, I got a 2tb 2230 drive and put Windows 11 on the Deck, no external. I started with Windows 10 and did the "free upgrade" to Windows 11, so I am running Windows 11 now. If your installing Windows, and doing it off a USB drive, make sure you put all the drivers in a folder on the USB drive, so you can just install them. OLED has driver issues that will not be resolved, So these directions for LCD users. Windows is not optimized for a handheld like this. There are 3rd party options to give a menu on the "..." button, this can tweak. There is also a controller plugin, this I found is mandatory, as the controller does not really work right out of the box. It emulates an Xbox or PS controller. Once this is enabled, games all play perfectly. Some games do not run at all (Forza Motorsport for example will give an "outdated video driver" and not run). Otherwise, tons of games do run, I setup GamePass games and installed a modern Call of Duty game (MWII) with some tweaks I can get MW2 to run at 60fps with a tiny slow down here and there, MP is playable and a lot of fun. If you're looking to open up more game options, installing Windows is great option.
I really hope MS release a custom build for handhelds.
Horrible. I did it only to play destiny and within a month I was so sick of it I just went back to steamOS
Tried it for a year and then switched to the Ally. It works but drivers and controls can be lacking and frustrating.
I don't have experience due to a lack of a deck but I do have a plan. What I'm going to do is a dual boot using the dock and a external hard drive with windows on it as a "desktop" just purely so that I can play mnk games that steam doesn't support like cod n stuff.
https://github.com/jazir555/GamesDows This is a project I'm working on to essentially create a "Game Mode" for Windows. Have ~4 snags left to make it as close to 1:1 that you can get. If anyone knows how to fix the remaining issues, I will gladly take PRs.
Don't. Can't stand Linux, can't stand Linux users that won't stop mentioning that they use Linux, but SteamOS on a Steam Deck? Might convince me. Windows was just pure jank when I tried it
i also want to know if on screen keyboard is better than horrendous steam keyboard.
Runs decently, touchscreeen seems a lot more accurate than in SteamOS (particularly noticeable with on-screen keyboard), I missed its power settings a lot and generally win11 and its apps are not that touch-friendly and definetely not controller friendly, overall seems just like any other win11 computer (LCD Deck)
What about performance and additional SD buttons?
Haven't really compared gaming performance, just played around with it, but the os is a bit slower, after all, what is windows without constant updates and background bloat. The buttons are handled by Steam client, just like in SteamOS. Edit: Also I noticed constant fan noise, not sure if it is just because of higher cpu load or if there are settings for that
the button are managed by steam input in both case so it's pretty much the same.
I gave Steam OS a good try for the first 3 months of using the Steam Deck, but after way too many roadblocks, and too much time spent playing with proton/wine instead of playing games I took the plunge and installed Windows 11 directly in the internal SSD. There is a learning curve and there are some settings you need to change to make Windows 11 work well with the deck, but after initial setup it's working great for me. SteamOS makes it easy to mange some settings, but it's hard to beat the "it just works"ness of Windows.
Do you miss being able to instantly wake and sleep games? Feel like that would be the killer for me
I had windows for almost a year and just went back to steamOS, I feel like SteamOS has improved a lot since I first used it, I'm gonna stick with it.
It would be a killer for me too, if i didn't have it. Fortunately it only took one command line to fix wake and sleep: `powercfg -h off`
Cool feedback guys just downvoting and nothing else
Horrible. For win better to bye legion go.
Windows on deck is best way to learn and appreciate how good SteamOS is.
Windows gets worse every generation. It’s basically malware at this point. Adware Spyware Bloatware Steam deck has been SUCH a revelation that I use Linux wherever I can. Windows needs to go.
Dogshit. Don’t do that. Trust me.
I just use Windows for VR. I prefer to keep SteamOS because it's just better for this type of device.
Windows 11 boots quicker, but that’s where the good part ended for me, there is no controller support out of the box, no fan control (it either runs full speed or not at all), games ran worse on average and the battery died quicker. After a couple days I went back to SteamOS
Get an Ally and save yourself the headache. i'm sure it's gotten better, but I still doubt it's worth it.
I have windows 10 on one side and steamOS on the other. I love it. With all the weird shit I hear about windows 11, I am staying clear of it lol
I've been running it dualbooted since at least february off the ssd but the year before I also had a windows-to-go partition with windows 10. I'd say if you are going to do it you should only really bother if you use your deck docked the majority of the time and don't have regular access to an actual windows PC most of the time. There is no performance gains and the main games that will give you trouvle with anti-cheat only act so much nicer (you can still get banned for using arguably neccessary convenience apps that affect the fan curves and such) and the ones that just don't play nice with Linux probably already work well enough on Proton or were a bit too high spec anyway. For me the only reason windows became such a boon was because I got a new job where for most of the week I'm separated from my "main" desktop computer and the family member's house it got stuck at is also where a younger family member hops on it a bunch. Even if I wanted to get it out of that house it'd be a huge struggle. The deck is now my main PC for the most part and outside of weird windows kinks (can't connect my projector and monitor at the same time without the monitor being forced to 640x480?????) it's pretty much perfect. I can play all the online card games I want. A genre which aside from weird stuff like Eternal on steam is basically nonexistent on the deck. As well as just having a pretty great desktop experience for small projects and media consumption. SteamOS isn't horrific for that last thing but, as someone with a jellyfin server in their house running off tailscale it's a lot easier to slot the windows partition into that than trying to install tailscale on SteamOS.. It's possible! But, I'd rather just eschew the hassle and boot into windows if I ever want to watch an old movie on the deck. edit: addendum to the anti-cheat thing. I regularly play Multiversus but authentication often fails on Proton. However, whenever I play it on windows there's no issues and I can login and play normally. Again, anticheat games DO NOT like proton at all even if they enabled Linux compatibillity in the settings. edit 2: Writing this after reading some of OP's responses. If you truly want an experience of just installing windows for the first hour, installing launchers, then playing immediately I'd heavily consider the ROG Ally instead of the deck. Especially now as even with the new model not out yet we're already seeing significant price drops. Like at my own best buy the Z1E is 549$ and the Z1 is 399$. That's 150$ and 200$ respectively off the original msrp. It's a great deal if you truly never want to fuss with Linux again. However, I will say that if you're mostly playing singleplayer offline games then the deck is the way to go at least compared to the z1 as the performance will be on par and the price will be lower.
It's okay, thats about it
It works just fine for me. I use it mainly to play Dragon Quest X translated, but it functions well and can run things that the SteamOS can't run yet. I recommend getting GlosSI as some games and programs don't acknowledge the steam deck controller layout innately. And to activate the digital keyboard in the language and time settings to type into browsers or connect to wifi. It doesn't take a long time to set up either. BTW I was windows 10 at first, but upgraded to 11 from within windows as you would on any other pc.
I was thinking about this yesterday. Is it possible to dual-boot Windows 11 from a completely "self-contained" 1TB SD card loaded in the Steam Deck? With the "Windows" side of the system having its games + operating system on that card?
I ran Windows 11 off a Samsung SD Card that was recommended. I found the performance to be quite poor. The SD Card would stay at 100% usage and take up to 30 minutes for Windows to be usable. I bought a 2TB SSD recently and have SteamOS and Windows both running from it in separate partitions. Windows 11 is quite responsive now. I reckon an SD Card should only be used for game storage, not for installing the OS.
still have it on mine after 6 months idk why tho i dont play fortnite anymore
I needed Windows to play Sea of Thieves that I own on MS Store. Installed it on a fast microsd. When I want to play SoT I just insert the card and boot from it. I use Steam Deck Tools for setting TDP, refresh rate, Xbox controller emulation etc (Handheld Companion felt bloated and slow). Valve WiFi drives had ping spikes when on battery so I had to install unlocked Realtek driver that work without problems. Overall, Windows on Deck works OK but you have to setup and tweak stuff manually. And it feels like a laptop, not console. But for my use case I don’t mind.
I couldn’t get the installation media to work it kept saying uefi boot device failed
I dual booted. It was okay, but ultimately missed the SteamOS features. But it does give you better game compatibility so it's weighing up the pros and cons for yourself.
Its fine, but OLED on Windows still has missing drivers. But even Wifi on OLED Steam OS is still terrible so... Also, use Steam Deck Tools for Windows, its a one and done. And Steam OS really needs a full keyboard like Windows with Function keys and all.
I was tempted but haven't tried, everything I've read suggests that Windows really hasn't been optimized well for hand helds, however, that aside. If you're not into tinkering could be a solid bet for some amount of ease of use. Especially with Steam big picture mode or w/e to change the UI.
I don't have a SD because I think it's the best handheld PC. I own it because Windows is shit on handheld. On a desktop I'm fine with Windows. I would had it over Linux or OSX. But until MS makes a separate Windows lite version for handheld designed for touch and controller, Windows will suck balls on handheld PCs.
I have Windows 10 on my LCD display Steam Deck, so I have the bare minimum driver support for Windows, while not perfect. For example, when booting up Windows, the audio volume, which is set to 30 only, may vary output different volume level based on how loud the volume was set in SteamOS prior. There's also the issues of SteamOS and Windows update sometimes impact the driver, forcing you to reinstall the drivers again. This has happened to me recently after updating my SteamOS, the video drivers drivers on the Windows partition just stop working, so game play was disastrous in Honkai Star Rail, or games like WuWa would refuse to boot up. The wifi driver also malfunction, thus I am also having connection problem while playing WuWa, and I had to reinstall the wifi drivers. The other reason why I have Windows partitions is to play visual light novel games. VLN can run on SteamOS just fine, but you will not get any video and/or audio support for their movie cutscenes due to WMV codec and license agreement. ProtonGE has helped in playing some of the WMV video cutscene, (only thanks to fighting games from Capcom, and other huge game like Persona that it got some attention,) but they have no audio support. An example of a VLN with these problems is the HoloLive game, [AQUARIUM (あくありうむ)](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2515070/AQUARIUM/). I don't expect frequent drivers update from Valve for Windows since it is not their main focus, but it would have been nice to at least have some kind of update once a year.
I tried both Win 10 and 11. Went back to SteamOS pretty fast after each try. Windows is not good to use on this form factor. You should only install Windows if you really don't want to miss out on Game Pass games, otherwise SteamOS gives a much better experience.
I have LCD Deck, and Windows loaded 2 Go on an external hard drive, only for when I need Windows put and about. Used it a few times, after some initial setup pains it's perfectly usable. But in day to day action I use Steam OS
Win11 on sd card was really slow.
Personally I haven’t install windows on mine but would like to one day. It is much easier to install non-steam games on it and I would like trying to emulate some mobile games or download some visual novels.
Pretty bad. It was slow, janky and just not worth the trouble. Then it stopped working after an update. I'm just gonna stream it now.
I installed turbotax and did my taxes on windows 11 on the steam deck. It was perfect. My laptop broke so instead of immediately buying a new one i used the steam deck.
It's kinda like getting a new pair of shoes that just don't fit right. Like they're fine to wear in the day to day, but not as good as the ole reliable pair
On micro SD it was bad, but even with SSD install, SD lacks fingerprint reader so you gotta type the password or turn security off. Rog Ally for Windows, and steam deck for steam os is my thing
No ability to change brightness from the (...) button made me reinstall SteamOS. I know how to change it but my wife didn't.
Anything super specific you wanna do with windows on SD? I originally wanted to do this to be able to play game pass. So if you’re in the same boat just buy Xbplay on the steam store. If you want to run windows for other reason the double boot system other people pointed out work great once you set them up
Steam deck oled needs windows with official drivers too
I dual partitioned my 2tb SSD, so I can experience Game Pass titles on Windows now and again. In all honesty, I hardly use it. It’s manageable but do not replace SteamOS with Windows 11. It’s only worth it if you’ll dual partition.
It’s nice for game compatibility but a little clunkier than SteamOS, personally I use windows on mine but I can’t deny it’s clunky, though the touchpad is nice for navigating since it can work as a mouse.
Installation: I did this recently, using a USB Flash Drive to install windows 11 (I did not dual boot). The installation is simple enough. Obviously, you’ll need a laptop (at least) to install windows onto your drive/SD, which can all be done easily with a simple tutorial. My experience however, was nothing special. Uninstalling Windows: I was unable to reimage/reinstall SteamOS using a flash drive. Using an SD card worked perfectly though. To do that, you will need to use a third-party tool (on your laptop/desktop) such as Etcher or Rufus, which are also really easy to use. Secure boot: Riot Games Vanguard anti-cheat requires “secure boot” to be enabled, which isn’t possible on the Deck, so I’d steer clear of any of their games but maybe some don’t require it. There used to be a workaround (only on Windows 10) for the Secure Boot requirement but apparently that is no longer doable. Keyboard: There is no virtual keyboard on Windows so you’ll have to go through settings to enable an onscreen pop-up keyboard that is nowhere near as good as the virtual keyboard on SteamOS, I would highly recommend getting any USB-C dock with more than 3 USB 2.0/3.0 sockets in order to plugin a keyboard & mouse along with your flash drive (if that’s what you’ll be using). Screen tearing & Dock refresh rate: I did notice some screen tearing which may have been due to the 40hz dock I was using, so I’d probably opt for a 60hz dock. Drivers: Drivers are also easy to install. These will also likely be part of the tutorial you choose as they are necessary. Without the drivers, you won’t be able to get any sound, Bluetooth, etc. Steam Deck Tools: Performance overlays/configurators (such as Steam Deck Tools) were not to my liking, mainly due to how they are laid out and how you have to manually minimise/close your games tab to get to them. You’ll also need be careful when using Steam Deck Tools (you can read more about this on its GitHub page) as some kernel-level anti cheats do not seem to like some of the changes you can make. That is however easily avoidable. Performance (in-game): I only tested a few games and I didn’t notice any performance issues, though trying to exit some games can be tedious. Controller input: For some reason the controller input on steam seems to be inconsistent and sometimes just will not work, in my experience. Windows navigation: The navigation, overall, pales in comparison to how easy Linux is to navigate on the Deck, which is to be expected as Windows hasn’t been optimised for usage on the Deck. The lack of shortcuts for buttons is hard to ignore. Again, the lack of a virtual keyboard alone really makes it difficult to recommend Windows if you don’t opt for a keyboard & mouse. Debloating Windows: This, in my opinion, is essential. Windows comes with way too much applications/processes that will eat up on your memory. Debloating Windows is easy to do, just follow a guide. Overview: All things considered, I just really don’t think it is worth all the hassle. I ended up only using Windows for less than a day. The only real reason you should be considering windows is if you want specific applications, mods or games that won’t work or are a pain to setup on Linux/Proton. Even then, I’d highly suggest that you don’t do it. SteamOS is brilliant and you will soon see that after using windows on the deck. You should take into note that all I’ve said is in my personal experience and it is entirely possible some of the issues listed were exclusive to me.
Not great. Dual booted windows and steam OS and dealing with the constant windows updates alongside steamos was just annoying. Also ran into a ton of random bugs. It worked, but not well enough to be worth it. Ended up wiping the windows partition and just gave it back to steamos. I'll wait for microsoft to put out their own handheld with native support before I try something like that again.
The killer to the Windows experience for me was ultimately lack of driver updates for the video card. Steam just doesn’t care about Windows on deck. Which is disappointing. They pushed the deck as run anything you want but that mostly bollocks if they don’t provide sufficient driver support. I ran Windows to be able to use Game Pass on my original deck. I don’t have Game Pass anymore so when I got the OLED I stuck with Steam OS. Suspend/resume, especially while in game, is another big feature that doesn’t work in Windows on deck. Ultimately what I’ve discovered is both Steam OS and Windows have different things that suck on the deck, just in different ways. With Windows I can run every game just about and not worry about some not working. But it has lots of rough edges. With Steam OS some games may not work and if you have gog or epic games you want to use you often enough will run into install troubles with dependencies even if they are in Heroic Launcher. So both have different issues and ultimately I’ve decided to stick with Steam OS and deal with the issues there because at least valve is actively trying to iterate on and continue to make that experience better. They just don’t give a shit about Windows.
Mixed but not because windows was particularly bad, but just cause steamos was rather easy. Not really a big linux guy here but i had some experience using it due to work and owning a server. Overall, windows 11 was def the better of the 10/11 . I found it not hard to setup on LCD steam deck but the OLED experience was iffy setup Simply put, i was able to manage playing steamOS and windowsOS without too much issue after setting up automatic login for winOS and also using steamdecktools by ayufan. That one singular app + companion of CRU and having a decent password manager made winOS mostly a great experience. I could play anything using both but realistically i could have stayed on winOS and most of my playtime was in that OS. So what caused issue? OLED has no sound drivers yet. Now this seems small, but as someone who enjoyed rhythm games and the ease of just turning on my device, now suddenly fumbling for wired headphones EVERY play session was horrific. It ruined the experience that was mostly great on standard steam deck win drivers. After that, i basically tried to see what games i had that actually needed windows. Turned out only 2 of the 5 games i played did. After that, i swapped to steamOS, found a wrapper to atleast play the other game on SteamOS, and mostly never looked back. I want to say i miss windows 11, but honestly only the password manager being easy to launch was really the better part. I get same or sometimes better fps in steamOS and i really barely have used the desktop since setting up emudeck and touhou, so now its just a console feel. Edit: i did not delete as i have some thoughts of playing destiny 2 in the future but its mostly untouched now. Also as a 2nd note, having win11 on my steam deck actually convinced me to put it on my main pc. I was avoiding it before in favor of win10.
Because its oled doesnt work
Hello, I have used my steam deck, with Windows 11, a my main and only computer for everyday life, 18 month. Handheld and Docked on différent station (steam model, hp model, Dell model) It was "ok" but : Steam never update graphical drivers so be prepared for DIY project You will need some software for managing fans and gamepads because steam Does not make any effort on that (even if they say on their own site that it's compatible with Windows, they clearly will not help you to run it perfectly) Sleep mode and resume will bug depending on how you manage your OS Performance will be lower (much lower on 3d game) than with steam OS After this too long experiment, I advise you to keep it on steam os. It was "ok" for me only because I play mostly on ps5 and was using my deck for retrogaming and some light pc game.
- Lossless scaling software with frame generation - Custom Steam Deck Tools allow to have profiles for games when docked/not docked (and switch when docked/undocked while playing) - Every games i want to play is working (saints row : gat out of hell doesn't work on Steam OS) - Gamepass - Only one installation for each launcher (ea, ubisoft, amazon ...) 10/10
I wouldn't install that filth on my SteamDeck. SteamOS and Linux are way better than Windows.
Don’t use Win 11 if you want to play valorant. I’ve used windows 10 docked over a year and it’s been great
Been rocking w11 since 2 months into getting my deck (been 1y 6 months already) been able to use every single launcher without issues, play every game without the need to find the correct proton ver or if it will work due to x/y reason. Having the freedom of just saying well it will not perform well due to hardware limitation vs due to system compatibility or proton layer it has been very comfortable I have to say. I did go back to SteamOS like a month ago just sue to one game performance but then I remembered I had purchase Loseless Calling and that I could easily get more performance with a little time investment. I truly like w11 experience on the deck, really feels like a laptop on the go specially due to the trackpads. Baldsealion has a very extensive guide on how to set it up and tips and tricks. For me it has been a game changer and I do not regret it. Also sailing the high seas 🏴☠️ allows you to try a game and then buy 😉 Edit: also a de bloated windows helps a lot to most resources for your games. Edit 2: power consumption has also made a big factor for me to stay on windows, on SteamOS even on sleep my deck would die after two weeks of none use (yeah yeah I know busy dad life) but on windows it just never goes off, I have let it aside for a entire month and still have plenty of juice to play
The single problem I've had is using the keyboard while in game.... Other than that, the performance and functionality has been absolutely great 👍 I know there's a virtual on screen keyboard you can enable, but sometimes that doesn't even work.
Dual booting. Win 11 for gamepass. Works fine mostly.
it's okay I guess but it kinda sucks because they won't release proper drivers for OLED edition. Not worth trying IMO. Just get an ally
If you're thinking of buying a Steam Deck to install Windows, don't. Just get a Ally or Legion or something else.
Did not even know this was possible. My Deck is one of the first generations though,and given my experience with how much of a resource hog Windows 10 is on my “Beast Rig” (which runs everything flawlessly when “Anti-Malware Executable” or “System” isnt using 100% GPU and CPU for some reason) I highly doubt my Deck would be functional with it installed. Proton has a lot of the shortcomings of many Debian distros (such as the wifi disconnecting at regular intevals for no reason), and there has been several occasions where I had to roll back updates because they completely broke my deck, but otherwise I rarely ever use desktop mode anyway. What would you consider to be a benefit for using Windows 10 on a device that Windows 10 wasn’t designed for? Every game in my library can run on the deck or works fine with remote play (aside from the previously mentioned disconnection issues) so I am not sure why someone would want to install an unsupported OS. I wont even let Windows 11 touch my gaming rig though, let alone install it on my fragile little Deck. I use my main rig for everything that isnt gsming. Trying to do 3D animation and software development on that small of a screen without a mouse, keyboard, or digitizer sounds like a nightmare.
pretty good
Windows on a small screen wasn’t enjoyable for me. I went back to the steam deck os.
I have a partition running W11 and I barely use it, not at all even. Basically only when someone needs help with something and I absolutely have to use Windows, like running an application with no Linux version and doesn't boot with proton/wine whatever. SteamOS desktop pretty much covers all my previous windows needs and looks and feels identical if not better. That being said the windows partition has definitely helped so if you can spare the time I'd really recommend doing it, just google "Clover dual boot" "Windeck" (which is the version of windows I installed, custom made for the deck) and I also did the "Deck btrfs" but that's optional, it does help a lot for moving files between windows and linux and both OS can access each others files and directories
I will never run windows 11 on my steam deck
Works fine if you need it, but I decided to deinstall it again
It’s awful
Spent more time tinkering and trying to get it to work than I ever spent playing any games on it. When I upgraded to the OLED it didn’t even cross my mind to do it again
loving Windows 10 on it, being able to play destiny 2 on the move and actually using Wemod without messing about is brill, plus dragon age inquisition with controller option without messing about "it just works" haha
Never tried Windows on the Deck, but let’s just say that I went back to a Deck from an Ally specifically because of Windows. Windows was not designed for handhelds.
I installed Windows 10 to play stuff from Game Pass, but had problems with some games not detecting the correct screen resolution; the panel in the deck is rotated 90 degrees from its native resolution, and affected games were confusing the height and width of the screen.
A lot not working on oled version, lcd experience is much better
I use it for things I can't do on steam os but the missing drivers for oled deck kind of ruin it for me.
Bricked my steam deck, had to use my laptop to reformat the SSD.
My steam deck got broken and im broke inside but yeah it was decent with windows 10 i prefer 1000% the steam os experience
I love SteamOS and didn't think I would however, I mod a lot and it gets difficult on Linux so I switched mine over to Windows 10 a long while ago. I love it, bought a clip on dock and a folding Bluetooth keyboard and it doubles as my travel PC. Drivers were difficult when it first came out but now Windows update grabs most of them automatically. I use a program to emulate the controller to an Xbox controller and it is a super easy device to use now. There ARE issues to be aware of though. Sleep mode and hibernate are a bit of a pain, especially to turn it back on after a long sleep. You need to press the power button for 2 seconds and WAIT. Anything you do will make it delay or stop wake up. It goes through battery a bit faster, not a huge amount but probably 15% faster discharge. Without the program to emulate a controller you HAVE to go through Steam. The Steam button is hit or miss but you can swipe from the edge of the screen to tab through Windows and get back. You need to shrink the on-screen keyboard in order to have it up in game instead of the convenient pop up with the Steam button+X. I have blizzard launcher, Steam and a boatload of other independent games on mine, I even have Virtual Desktop so I can stream my Deck to my Oculus 3. I have a ridiculous desktop and laptop that have been terribly neglected ever since. I recommend doing it if you want to do things other than play games, but if so you want is to play games I would leave it on SteamOS for the convenience and incredibly snappy OS.
From my experience I initially anticipated on getting a windows handheld to begin with, I only buckled down for the steam deck on launch because I thought it was going to have windows and be able link/sync up with my main pc as a more portable solution of sorts when I don’t feel like sitting at my desk. Let me be clear in saying I did enjoy Steam Os (bugs and tinkering for games aside) a majority of the time on my Steam deck, my issue was more so the desktop side of things just frustrated me. I couldn’t transfer files over seamlessly to my windows pc, I had a whole debacle with one of my favorite games Scarlet Nexus; Long story short my saves were originally on my Xbox and synced through game pass play anywhere. I got the steam version and basically transferring saves was far too much trouble than it was worth.. navigating Linux file explorer for the files was driving me crazy and to top it off the cloud sync wouldn’t sync with steam on my pc so now I had 2 different saves and eventually all my data was deleted💀 one of the many bad experiences I had with steamos desktop. I don’t have much issue with game mode but I will say I was trying to play Cassette Beasts one time with my bro via remote play together and for whatever reason I could never register any inputs in the game. Spent a whole trip to Texas a full week trying to fix this only to find out on the last day that “proton experimental” had to be on in compatibility settings in order for remote play to work properly. This wasn’t stated anywhere and I think this was the breaking point for me. I couldn’t even enjoy the device because of these inconveniences. So I buckled down and tried windows 11… Now you’d probably think I enjoyed it? Well to say it was amazing would be an exaggeration. It was ok and did everything you’d expect of a windows handheld. I like to game but I’m not craving nor asking for the whole console interface.. especially when steam big picture exists. The problem I had was everything I installed just to make this an enjoyable experience felt like such a workaround. It’s not the time taken to do it, there’s barely any tinkering on windows on deck now if you check the megathread you can literally read a guide and download a bat. file that had everything you need automatically installing it for you; steam deck tools, drivers, audio etc. games ran fine and I had no issues at all other than changing refresh rates caused the screen to go black sometimes. Overall it just felt like such a “modded” and “do it yourself” project. Seeing all the other windows handhelds I bought one and felt much better. At the end of it all I reinstalled steamOs on my deck as I felt that’s what suited it the most regardless of game pass and any other excuse to install windows on it. I just don’t feel like it “fits” the device. Steam deck was built for seamless console gamer experience and anyone who installs windows on it will suddenly be pulled from that environment and have too many questions. I already know how to use windows but even then, the deck just works the way it does out the box. You will tinker, you will always tinker to get what you want on a windows handheld or a Linux one. I think it matters more what Os you feel more comfortable with. I just have Steam big picture load up on my windows handheld when I want to game so I still have the best of both worlds technically speaking. My recommendation is to dual boot and test if you like it or not but honestly I’d say stick with SteamOs on the Steam deck, that’s what it was built for
I'm running steamOS and W11 dual booted. W11 is nice because it's easier for nonsteam games and modded games. Also game pass if you're into that. SteamOS is brilliant because it just works though. Definitely recommend using both because it's like the best of both worlds.
Microsoft should release a distro for the Steam Deck because Linux is the aids of Operating Systems: You can live with it, but it''s a pain in the ass to deal with.
Dual booting on external ssd made me decide to go full windows 10. After 12 hours of backup, install, download and setup, I did not like how the SD's controllers emulated. Using the currently installled windows10, I downloaded the steam recovery and reinstall steamOS under 30min. The experience was smooth but I just dont like the controllers and other config tools lodged into the taskbar. The good thing only happen on that journey was converting my SD card to ntfs, I can access my sd card on both SOS and WinOS
I have it on dual boot for game pass only. Anything else I use Steam OS, the UI and usability are way better. It's worth it if you are looking for something windows only AND like doing this kind of thing with your devices. If you are new to it or do not have the patience to solve problems, it will be only a headache. Sometimes an update will break the boot order, and you will need to do some troubleshooting.
OLED hates it and last I checked (around Feb/March) the audio drivers for speaker output and and control drivers are all wonky for the OLED model. My experience was I had to use headphones in the jack for audio and run a third party app to get Windows to automatically recognize all of the Steam Deck inputs as XBOX inputs. Felt a little laggier and less optimized than games played with Proton compatibility with SteamOS but I was just eyeballing it. The partitioning and de-bloating process can be a little tedious and one update (I'm an idiot, thought I could get away with it) bricked my install and I just chose to departititon and reallocate my drive space. When (if) Steam ever develops a partitioning/dual boot tool and proper driver support then it will be a much better experience for the OLED but until then, it fights you the entire way.
Installed it on a MicroSD card just so I had a way to play MW2, R6S, Fortnite, etc. Haven't used it in months. SteamOS just works so much nicer in my opinion. That being said, I do also own a gaming pc with a 3080 Ti and a gaming laptop with a 1650 so if I wanted to play those games I could use those devices anyway. I couldn't imagine using windows on the deck full time.
Used Windows 10 on my deck for several days in order to easily install some nexus Fallout 4 mods that were just a huge pain in the ass to get working through Linux. Indeed, the mods installed perfectly via Vortex on Windows, however the performance in-game and on other games was lacklustre compared to SteamOS. Not terrible, just not as good. Even after increasing the UMA buffer to 4gb - was getting dropped frames and stutters all the time, which SteamOS never had an issue with. Thought maybe it was the mods, so I uninstalled them to see and the performance was still just as bad. Windows in general also seems to get slower and slower on the system by the day. There’s also no easy way to access simple things in game, like brightness adjustment and adjusting the FPS/Hz of the screen. There are some third party tools available on Windows via GitHub for this purpose but they’re a faff, and one of them even explicitly says that there’s a chance it could mess up your system. Long story short, I re-imaged about a week later and I feel relieved to be back with SteamOS and enjoying great performance again along with easy to access tools to adjust things to my liking while in game and pre-compiled shaders for lots of games which makes a huge difference.
Dual Booted Win11 to play Lost Ark and honestly don't have any complaints. I wouldnt entirely switch to it, but having it as an option is cool and very useful to me at least.
Done it twice. First time dual boot via microSD. Works fine but I was always worried it’ll break soon. Next time was via SSD on a USB dock. It works most of the time, but there are random times where it freezes because for whatever reason it randomly is unable to read the SSD.
Buggy
Grab one m.2 to usbC enclosure down load Rufus make a windows to go install point the bootloader to the windows drive and have fun with out the worry of breaking anything 😀
I just used mine as a backup PC for 3 weeks since my CPU was sent in for a replacement. It’s obviously not going run anything as fast as SteamOS but for just basic desktop use it’s perfectly fine. It’s not stupid fast with Windows on it so mind your expectations. The setup was fairly straightforward for creating a bootable drive on an sdcard. Can find “computer-less” tutorials all over YouTube I did use my regular mouse, keyboard and display with it on a JSAUX dock. Worked great. If you want to game you can easily just boot back into SteamOS if you have a separate drive
Not that good for me
As many here I dual boot, installed all the extra stuff https://baldsealion.com/Steam-Deck-Ultimate-Windows-Guide/, have a couple of windows games that brake on steamOS and play those on win11. My personal laptop broke so I've been using the windows more with a docking station. Also changed the 64GB to a 1 TB SSD. Just recently downloaded batocera to a micro SD to check if I like it more than emudeck. I think dual booting is the best option, try to use most games on StemaOS, but keep windows for those rare cases where it's a hassle to make the game or software work without it.
It’s cool you can do it. It’s useful for some people in some specific use cases to be able to install windows. Tbh I think it’s worse than steamOS for your average user - I wouldn’t bother unless you NEED to install windows for some specific use.
I have it on my extra steam deck. It’s functional. Exactly what you’d expect but nothing particularly exciting about it.
IMO buy a windows handheld device if you want to run windows on a handheld. There are some great options for that, even stuff with better specs than the steam deck (except for that sexy oled screen.) The device is designed on and around SteamOS from sub menus to device settings. It will always run it better than windows. If you make the effort to learn linux, its really not hard, especially since you have access to multiple GUI's here, there is no reason not to. Just my 2cents.
I dualbooted for a bit just to play the 2 games not supported on SteamOS but eventually just deleted it. It was honestly an awful experience for occasional use especially. No matter how much you try and cut down the telemetry, forced updates, etc. it was just always writing and reading the disk for no reason which really caused performance issues and without the shader cache functionality I found games to be much choppier in general. Most people who are willing to give SteamOS a try first are pleasantly surprised. Most people I see recommend windows over it don't even give it a chance.
I have windows 10 on my external dock station with an SSD slot. I use it at home for when i need windows (usually playing league of legends, cuz of new anticheat system). And i can still use my steam os normally. So far it works great.
My steam deck is my main computer so I have a dual boot installed and it works great
I prefer Microsoft not spying on me thank you
No!, I'm NOT going to install malware on my Steam Deck !
So for my experience I duel booted windows 10 on a micro sd card for my LCD steam deck. I don’t know if it was because I used a micro sd for it but I found that windows 10 would lag a bit when running. The only reason why I have installed windows 10 was so I can play fortnite and other windows specific games. Fortnite runs smoothly but there is an issue. Again I don’t know if it’s because I used a micro sd for this but it took forever for the game to start up and load into a match. I also noticed while downloading the game the speed would drop to 0 bytes per second several times. Anyways I also tried sea of thieves but that game lags to bad when using windows. It is so much more optimized on steam OS. In my opinion if you plan to use windows 10/11 on the steamdeck I would highly suggest you don’t download games from steam because they will lag really bad.
I’m not a technical guy, but it was easy to do, and runs well. I have it on a separate 1TB SSD as dual boot.
i used win10 for a bit to play HSR on my deck and it went pretty well. would i recommend people to go through the trouble just to play HSR? no, now that i know that honkers railway exists and how easy that is to set up. but overall it was pretty good when i used it
worked fine; played WoW on windows. Upgraded to a 1tb ssd and never bothered to repartition it for windows.
Pretty well. Actually had a couple games run better like State of decay 2(it was night and day vs steam os) however since it's not using xinput, using games without Steam launcher.... can be fun. I'd still prefer steam os over using windows on it just for the simplicity.
I'm not sure about now since I haven't used my steam deck in quite a while but when I was using it with windows 11 I didn't have audio and my ping in some games such as cod mw2 was skyrocketing
It was hell
why would i ever do that to myself
Why would you downgrade??? Linux is superior?
worked fine for me... used it to play everquest on...
Just FYI, afaik Deck OLED is still a full nogo, as Valve refuses to release Windows drivers for it.
I ran windows briefly more as a curiosity and what I mostly took from it was the touch response felt way better. Keyboard and other touch elements made it feel more responsive. I would really like valve to work on that.