Steam Deck portable gaming console is powered by SteamOS 3.0 (Arch-based Linux) which is optimized for a handheld gaming experience. It comes with Proton, a compatibility layer that makes it possible to run all the Windows-based Steam games without any porting work from developers.
Today, Steam released additional drivers for Steam Deck that will allow you to install full Windows OS on the device. You can download them here. Once you have installed Windows, you can install other applications and games based on your preferences.
Steam Deck is powered by AMD-based custom APU (Zen 2 + RDNA 2), so you will be able to enjoy several AAA games that can run on Windows. There are some limitations when you install Windows on Steam Deck, you can read about it here.
- For now, you can only perform a full Windows install. While Steam Deck is fully capable of dual-boot, the SteamOS installer that provides a dual-boot wizard isn’t ready yet.
- Also, for now, you can only install Windows 10. Windows 11 requires a new BIOS that is currently in the pipe (which provides fTPM support) and will be shipping soon.
- Drivers are provided for GPU, WiFi, and Bluetooth. Audio drivers are still in the works with AMD and other parties – but you’ll still be able to use Bluetooth or USB-C audio with Windows on Deck.
- Steam will not offer ‘Windows on Deck’ support.
- You can follow these recovery instructions to install SteamOS again.
