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Windows Steam Guide

Steam runs in a dedicated prefix named Steam by default.

Install Steam

The app and installer download SteamSetup.exe to:

~/Library/Application Support/RipperMoonKit/Downloads/SteamSetup.exe

Install or repair Steam:

gptk-steam --install-only --install "$HOME/Library/Application Support/RipperMoonKit/Downloads/SteamSetup.exe"

The install is considered successful only when steam.exe exists inside the Steam prefix. The --install-only flag validates that file, applies the Steam compatibility settings, then stops Steam instead of launching the Steam UI. This keeps first-run setup from hanging while Steam updates itself.

The guided app setup starts Steam installation in the background, then moves to the finished screen so the user can set game folders and cover art while Steam finishes. The Steam tile shows Install Steam until validation passes, then changes to Repair Steam. Open that Steam profile later when you are ready to sign in.

From source, the matching background install command is:

./install.zsh --install-steam-background

Start Steam

gptk-steam --log

Keep that terminal open while Steam is running. Use a second terminal for game launches.

Stop Steam

gptk-steam --kill

This stops the Wine server for the Steam prefix. Use it when Steam is stuck, when you need to reset state, or when you are done testing.

Steam Webhelper Compatibility

The wrapper applies per-application Windows 7 compatibility to:

steam.exe
steamwebhelper.exe
steamservice.exe

The prefix itself stays on Windows 10 unless you change it. This keeps the workaround local to Steam and avoids forcing games into a Windows 7 environment.

Repair those entries:

gptk-steam --repair-compat

AppID 480 / Spacewar

Some Steamworks test paths use Spacewar/AppID 480. In co-op workflows such as Elden Ring Seamless Co-op, the mod may use Steam networking while the game itself is launched from a copied folder. Steam still needs the local AppID 480 state available inside the Steam prefix.

This is a run-once setup step. Launch AppID 480 from the Steam profile, let Steam finish installing Spacewar and any first-run redistributables, then close Spacewar. After that, start Steam normally before launching the co-op game.

From the GUI:

  1. Open the Steam profile.
  2. Click Install Spacewar.
  3. Wait for Steam to finish AppID 480 setup.
  4. Close Spacewar.
  5. Launch the co-op game profile.

From Terminal:

gptk-steam --log --install-spacewar

The raw Steam argument form is equivalent:

gptk-steam --log -applaunch 480

If the app has first-run redistributables, let Steam finish them before launching a game that depends on that Steamworks state.

Controller Layouts

Steam's in-client controller configurator (the layout/template editor) renders blank under GPTK. The editor is a CEF (Chromium) web view, and GPTK's Wine cannot give CEF's GPU process a working shared-image context (SharedImageStub: unable to create context), so that view detaches and shows nothing. Controller detection, sign-in, and the Steam Input runtime all work — only the visual editor fails to paint.

To assign a layout without that editor, RipperMoonKit copies a Steam Input config (.vdf) into the prefix's controller_base/templates and writes the selection into the controller config sets, which Steam reads at startup. Obtain a controller_mappings .vdf, then:

From the GUI:

  1. Open the Steam profile and stop Steam if it is running.
  2. Expand Controller Layout and turn it on.
  3. Set the App ID (480 is Spacewar, Valve's free Steamworks sample) and pick the layout .vdf.
  4. Click Apply Layout, then start Steam and launch the app with the controller connected.

From Terminal:

gptk-steam --kill
gptk-steam-layout apply --app-id 480 --layout /path/to/layout.vdf
gptk-steam-layout status --app-id 480

The selection is written for the layout's controller type plus matching physical pads. Steam loads it as the "Local Selection Path" for that app id. Edited config sets are backed up under the account's config/.rmk-backup-<timestamp> folder first. Use gptk-steam-layout remove --app-id 480 to clear it.

Steam must be stopped when applying or removing: Steam reads these config sets at startup and rewrites them on exit, so an edit made while it is running is lost.

Adding an installed Steam game as a profile

A game you downloaded inside Steam (for example It Takes Two) needs Steam's own launch environment, so it cannot run from the plain copied-folder path. Instead it runs as a Steam-managed profile that launches through gptk-steam -applaunch <app-id> — which starts Steam in the background, so you never open the Steam UI by hand.

From the GUI:

  1. Install the game in Steam (open the Steam profile, sign in, install to the internal S: library to avoid external-drive download failures).
  2. In the library, click Add Steam Game. It scans the installed Steam library across mounted drives (games on an unplugged external drive are skipped) and lists what it finds.
  3. Pick the game and click Add. It appears as a tile; its Launch button starts Steam and the game in one click.

You can also set a profile's Steam App ID by hand in App Settings to make any profile launch this way. The download path itself prefers the internal S: library; a Steam library on an external drive that unmounts mid-download is the usual cause of "Unpack failed" content errors.

Controllers don't respond in games

If a controller shows up in Steam and in the game's settings but does nothing when you press buttons, the cause is macOS, not Wine. macOS's GameController framework takes exclusive ownership of Xbox and PlayStation pads (visible as UsbExclusiveOwner in ioreg), which starves Wine's default raw-HID backend — the pad enumerates (so it appears everywhere) but no button or stick input reaches the game. This affects USB and Bluetooth equally and is independent of Steam Input.

RipperMoonKit fixes this by enabling Wine's SDL controller backend per prefix (winebus Enable SDL), which reads the pad through that same macOS framework cooperatively, so input flows to games. It is applied automatically the first time a prefix is launched (and on prefix init), and loads when the prefix's Steam/Wine next starts. Set GPTK_CONTROLLER_SDL=0 in ~/.rippermoon-gptk.env to opt out.

To apply it immediately to a prefix that is already running, close Steam/the game so the Wine driver reloads, then launch again. A controller that still works through Steam Input but not natively is a separate, game-specific issue.