Steam Deck Windows drivers have arrived, finally adding official Windows support to Valve's handheld gaming PC. Unfortunately, you won't yet be able to dual-boot your Deck to either Windows or SteamOS just yet.
The Steam Deck has finally launched after months of anticipation alongside a free Portal-themed game to introduce owners to the handheld gaming PC's features. Although there were some early stumbles, Valve is going full tilt with ramping up production for the next wave of orders. Now, those of you lucky enough to already have your hands on one of these neat little devices can finally install Windows.
What Do the Steam Deck Windows Drivers Do?
To be clear, the Steam Deck Windows drivers don't allow you to install every version of Windows -- at least, not yet. Currently, only Windows 10 is supported on the Steam Deck.
As Valve explains in today's announcement (via Reddit), Windows 11 requires a new BIOS to be made. There's no news about getting older versions of Windows running on the Deck, but I wouldn't be surprised to see some madlad get Windows 95 running on this thing at some point in the future. You won't be able to dual-boot to Steam OS yet, either. The Steam Deck is capable of this functionality, but Valve is still working on an installer to facilitate this process.
The Steam Deck Windows drivers cover support for the FPU, wifi, and Bluetooth. Audio drivers are still being worked on, but you can work around that for now using Bluetooth audio or external audio via USB-C.
You can download the Steam Deck Windows drivers and other associated files via Steam Support. Bear in mind, Valve cannot offer technical support if you mess things up; fortunately, they do provide a process for recovering back to SteamOS. You can learn more about the Steam Deck (and reserve one of these handheld gaming PCs for yourself) on Steam.
