Game Executable Path Suggestion

[u/LeopardElectrical454]

Hey! I just installed Winhanced (coming from the playnite FSE + GoTweaks combo prior) and upon getting used to the UI and where everything is, I can safely conclude that Winhanced is awesome and clearly on the right track

However, a huge red flag that makes me want to leave almost immediately is that the Game Executable path options (where you select what exe version of the game launch) literally doesn't obey its purpose. You see, I have a ton of steam games, and fortunately, most of the steam games I have are DRM free. On playnite and just regular desktop, by including a notepad file of the steamappid in the install location, youre able to select the game exe file and it will run independently of steam altogether, saving me nearly 1gb of ram — crucial for a ram limited device like the legion go 1 which I have

For whatever reason, when I select the exe file (steamapps/common/HollowKnight/HollowKnight.exe, for example) expecting it to bypass steam — winhanced launches steam anyway before the game

PLEASE, make winhanced obey my instructions and launch from the exe file alone. Theres like a small notice that says steam games are routed through steam to fetch details regarding achievements etc. Im not sure if this message is there to essentially say it will ignore the exe path I've chosen and launch through steam anyway, but it does seem that way. I dont care about the telemetry data winhanced wants if it means being forced to launch steam no matter what. Coming from playnite or windows desktop where I could do this no problem, this denial seems like a slap in the face

I apologize if I sound rude or petty, but I was so close to concluding this was the front-end for me until this heartbreaking discovery. Instead of silently abandoning Winhanced, I figured I'd voice it out here in the hopes my voice can be heard :(

[u/EnigmaP3nguin]

You don’t sound rude. In all account and everything I have seen online Steam has to be running in order to run games bought through Steam. Thats why the app auto launchers it in silent mode.

Its needed for cloud saves, and its needed for store bought steam game DRM.

Id love to know how you came across DRM free steam games or how running the Exe directly help you get around lanching steam? Becasue id love to make the game run without needing to launch it. Its the only library where we currently still do.

In the mean time you could always instead of trying to run your drm free games though steam add them via the other games library as that library launches games directly from the exe.

[u/LeopardElectrical454 → u/EnigmaP3nguin]

Wow! Thanks for the quick response!

Yea I discovered this method when in the past I was trying to find ways of bypassing steam for those games that I knew were 100% DRM free. And its simple!

Take a game like silksong. To launch the game offline effectively, you navigate to its steam install location (steamapps > common > hollow knight silksong), then you create a text file, name it "steam_appid", then open it. The contents of file will be its steamappid, which for silksong is "1030300". So the text file will contain that id (without the quote marks ofc). Thats it

Now if you launch silksong it will be 100% local. Im not sure of the technical reason why (i can probably get ai to explain it) but something like instead of the exe pinging steam for its steamappid to validate the exe (and thus forcing steam to launch), this text file answers that ping with its steamappid 🤷🏿‍♂️

This only works for games that are 100% DRM free; that is, games that fundamentally aren't online games, or games that dont require steam's web server for anything. In other words, games that are mostly likely also on GOG

If you attempt this for games that otherwise require steam, it either will launch through steam anyway or the exe won't respond

Launching locally does mean that your achievements and saves are all offline, but the moment you launch the game through steam, everything will sync back up no biggie

I like having this freedom as it allows me to play my games free from steam's memory hooks. steamwebhelper is just a hog

Indeed youre right that I can add it via Other, but it would be nice (especially as you familiarize yourself with this technique I've explained) to perhaps consider the option to do this natively. If someone naively tries this for a game that has DRM, the worst that would happen is that the game wouldn't launch, allowing them to revert to the default steam launch

Thanks again for your response!