0
I know that I can boot into Windows and start a specific program instead of explorer.exe. What I'd like to do is optionally boot into Windows with a different shell based on a selection I make in grub. Is this possible?
I'm dual-booting Windows and Linux, and I'd like to have an additional menu item in Grub that lets me boot into Windows and automatically start Steam in Big Picture mode without preventing me to boot into windows with the standard explorer.exe shell. SteamOS is not an option since several of my games are Windows only.
Is this at all possible?
a Grub option would still require user intervention. If you default to auto-launch big picture mode (autorun via registry or via start menu), the amount of user intervention to close or minimize steam is about the same. This also prevents a whole cascade of potential problems: steam as a shell won't/may not load the user-mode portions of driver packages (hotkeys etc) , some bootcamp stuff, – Yorik – 2016-11-22T17:47:30.050
@Yorik Yeah, I understand this is might be a harebrained idea. I just have an HDMI port connected to my television in another room, and when friends are over I'd like to be able to load up Steam without having to mess around with a mouse and keyboard. I figure I can try to bootstrap anything with an intermediate batch script if necessary. – Ian Hunter – 2016-11-25T01:04:18.003
You would only need to close it if you are at your desk, otherwise it loads right to big picture mode. Make a steam shortcut in the startup folder ( http://superuser.com/questions/489777/ ). Again, replacing the shell will make some things not work without manually loading them ( such as via HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon )
– Yorik – 2016-11-29T15:39:28.1171Before you change the shell, make a "non-steam game" entry for explorer.exe just so you can get to it easily. – Yorik – 2016-11-29T15:40:23.380
Thanks, @Yorik. Alternatively, I've noticed that CTRL-ALT-DELETE still functions as expected, so I can just spawn the task manager and start the explorer.exe process from there.
Fortunately, 99% of the time I use Windows it's for Steam, so just changing the shell has ended up working perfectly for me. – Ian Hunter – 2016-11-29T16:05:04.880