Control automatic start of client in Steam

Submitted by The_Alex on #1

Hi,

I am currently using VirtualHere with my old SteamLink hardware on a Windows PC running Steam and it used to run very well for years.

Now I switched to a Linux (Mint) client. No problem, I have switched over to the (non-Steam) Linux client and everything works again.

Here is my problem: Apparently the Steam client tries to download and launch the (emulated, thus non-functioning) Windows version each time I start streaming with the SteamLink. Is there an option to tell the Steam client not to download and start the Windows version every time? I am asking because this leads to tens of thousands of zombie processes (which eventually crashes the system) since Steam keeps restarting. Changing the .exe file with a simple script or the correct soft link to the Linux client does not solve the problem and neither does removing the file permissions.

Submitted by Michael on Tue, 2025/09/23 - 07:06

#2

Unfortunately i don't control anything with steam other than uploading the binaries for the server and (windows) client, to their system.

 Perhaps try creating a bash file called vhui64.exe which just does nothing but doesnt exit until a key is pressed (or SIGTERM) 

#!/bin/sh

read  -n 1 -p "Input Selection:" mainmenuinput

and put that in the same location as the vhui64.exe it downloads.  Im not sure if it smart enough to check the hash (it might be) 

Submitted by The_Alex on Tue, 2025/09/23 - 18:47

#3

Thanks for your idea. I have tried it (it is not overwritten, so luckily no checksum check) and unfortunately it does not make a difference, Steam still invokes the script about 4 times each second and zombie processes start to pile up rather quickly.

I will contact the Valve support since this might be purely a Steam client issue, thank you for your quick answer!