This guide will tell you how to launch Steam Deck UI on Windows with a controller.
1- First, open Steam and opt in for the beta program. It will allow the use of Steam. In Steam, select, Steam from the top and settings from the drop-down menu, then go to the account and click on the change button. Set the Beta participants to Steam Beta Update.
2- Afterwards, go to the desktop, click on the Windows button, search notepad, and open it. Gamepad UI doesn’t launch if the Steam desktop is open. Therefore you have to create a batch file process and re-launch Steam with the command -gamepadui. Enter the command given below in the Notepad file and save this file in the steam folder. The extension of the file should be .bat.
@echo off taskkill /f /im steam.exe timeout /t 3 /nobreak cd "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\" start steam.exe -gamepadui
3- Now, download JoyXoff from the following link https://joyxoff.com/en/. Once downloaded and installed, open the JoyXoff and create a new desktop binding that shall be used to open Steam deck UI / Gamepad UI in Windows. For this, click on Profile and then click on Edit bindings.
4- Right-click on Nothing, select binding modifiers from the drop-down menu and then select Use Secondary bindings from the extended menu.
5- Right-click Nothing on the screen’s top and select the Open shortcut from the drop-down menu. Now go to the location where you saved the .bat file you just created, and then click on the Apply button.
6- Pushing the set desktop binding on the controller will launch the Steam deck UI / Gamepad. A cmd window will appear quickly and then close before starting Steam.
