###[Back to Index](https://poal.co/s/WineGaming/314301) **Important Note** This guide was created before the release of Valve's SteamPlay Proton, and as such, it contains instructions on how to install the Windows Steam client. Proton has now made it possible to get your Windows only games working in Linux, without the need to first install the entire Windows Steam application. Those sections will remain in this guide, but you should **no longer need to follow them**. There is a SteamPlay/Proton Overview in the main guide index post, which will cover this far easier method. #Preamble God, finally, time to install a game. For this guide I'll detail: * Basic Standalone Installer (obtain through totally legit means...) * Windows_Steam Install (install an example game) This will not include in-depth tweaking to get a game working properly. This is just how to install a game and Windows_Steam into a prefix. In depth tweaking is discussed later, but will vary from game to game. **Note:** Programs like Lutris make installing and maintaining Wine and Wine_Steam games much easier, so if you are daunted by the steps so far in these guides, check out the Lutris Guide from the Index. #Installing a game using a Standalone Installer Get a hold of the standalone installer; the very first and obvious step, and then save it to disk somewhere. Where you got it, I don't want to know; I won't judge, just remember that Wine imitates the Windows Runtime Environment, so if your Installer contains some Windows Malware, Wine will try to execute it. Launch a terminal session and enter: >WINEPREFIX=/path/to/your/prefix wine /direct/path/to/your/setup.exe And that's it. If you're lucky, the setup program will launch and you can next through the various windows and then watch in silent satisfaction as the progress bar goes from 0 to 100%. **Note:** If your setup.exe is from a more questionable source, you might encounter a runtime error message when trying to install it. To resolve, close the installer, and kill the wineserver process if it does not close automatically after a few seconds. Run: >WINEPREFIX=/path/to/your/prefix winecfg Under Application settings, change the Windows Version to: Windows XP. Click Apply and then close winecfg. Try again. If it works, you can change back to a different Windows version after the install has completed. #Installing a Game through the use of Windows Steam Download the Windows Steam Setup.exe from: https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/client/installer/SteamSetup.exe If you want to be really fancy, you can get it without even leaving the terminal, using: >wget https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/client/installer/SteamSetup.exe It will be downloaded into whatever directory you terminal session is currently sitting in. Run: >WINEPREFIX=/path/to/your/prefix wine /direct/path/to/the/SteamSetup.exe Steam setup will complete without issue, just make sure the Run Steam checkbox is ticked. Steam will then download required updates and finish installing. Login to your account, install a game from your library. **Note:** The Steam Store will not work. There are workarounds that used to work, but I won't mention them because more and more people are reporting that they no longer do. #Creating a Shortcut (Launcher) for your newly installed Games. (Non-Steam) Although you can launch your games from the terminal, sometimes you just want a shortcut to click on to automate those steps; how to do this, depends on your distribution and Desktop Environment, but as a general rule, most distributions will recognise .Desktop Launcher files and allow you to launch your wine application. Open a text editor and enter the following, modifying the values for your specific game/program: >[Desktop Entry] >Encoding=UTF-8 >Name=Game_Name >Comment=Wine Game, Totally Legit >Type=Application >Exec=env WINEPREFIX=/path/to/your/prefix wine /home/{Your_Username}/path/to/your/game/exe.exe >Icon=/path/to/game/icon/file >Categories=Wine Save the file with the .desktop extension. Lastly, make it executable by using either the GUI (right-click > properties > permissions > allow this file to run as a program), or by typing into the terminal: >chmod +x /path/to/your/file.desktop **Important Note:** If the Path to your game .exe or wineprefix contains spaces, you must use a backspace before the space in the path. For example: >/drive_c/Program\ Files/Game\ I\ Installed/game.exe **Important Note 2:** Paths are Case Sensitive in Linux. So if you get errors about a path not being found, check to see if you're missing an upper case character somewhere. #Creating a Shortcut (Launcher) for Newly Installed Windows Steam Game Open a text editor and enter the following, modifying the values for your specific game/program: >[Desktop Entry] >Encoding=UTF-8 >Name=Game_Name >Comment=Wine Game, Totally Legit >Type=Application >Exec=env WINEPREFIX=/path/to/your/prefix wine /home/{Your_Username}/path/to/steam.exe steam://rungameid/000000 <--Replace with the Steam Store Game ID. >Icon=/path/to/game/icon/file >Categories=Wine Save the file with the .desktop extension. Lastly, make it executable by using either the GUI (right-click > properties > permissions > allow this file to run as a program), or by typing into the terminal: >chmod +x /path/to/your/file.desktop **Important Note:** If the Path to your game .exe or wineprefix contains spaces, you must use a backspace before the space in the path. For example: >/drive_c/Program\ Files/Game\ I\ Installed/game.exe **Important Note 2:** Paths are Case Sensitive in Linux. So if you get errors about a path not being found, check to see if you're missing an upper case character somewhere.