Exe launch works, but a Steam "non-Steam game" shortcut does not.

[John Smith]

I don't understand.

I installed a non-Steam version of Burnout Paradise, a racing game. Unfortunately, it has no support for windowed mode at all. I had no choice but to use Dxwnd to make it run windowed.

And it works, when I use Dxwnd.

But here is the problem.

It only works if I click the exe located here:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common[Burnout Paradise]\BurnoutParadise.exe"

or

When I open up Dxwnd and then double click the config file for BurnoutParadise.

--

If I go into Steam and create a non-Steam shortcut for BurnoutParadise, it will launch the game, but without the Dxwnd settings. It will only launch the game in fullscreen.

How can I launch the game from Steam, using a non-Steam game shortcut, and have it apply my Dxwnd windowed mode settings?

--

I even tried creating a simple .bat file (I have no understanding of .bat files, but I just create them via trial and error):

; echo off
start C:\"Program Files (x86)"\Steam\steamapps\common\"[Burnout Paradise]"\BurnoutParadise.exe
exit

When I double click the .bat file, it launches the game using Dxwnd windowed mode settings, but when I create a non-Steam game shortcut inside Steam linking to the .bat file, it launches the game without Dxwnd settings into fullscreen.

I even used some aoe_launcher .bat file you wrote and removed the Dxwnd stuff out because my Dxwnd is already running and I don't ever want to exit it., but it still did not work.

; echo off
C:
cd \Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common[Burnout Paradise]\
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common[Burnout Paradise]\BurnoutParadise.exe"

[gho]

Not an easy question, there could be many reasons.
I'm not an expert of everything, but I can try to make some guess and suggest some solution:

It could be a permission problem. Try setting administrative privileges to DxWnd.exe. If you create scripts or shortcuts, try setting the permission to them as well.

It could be a path problem: DxWnd hooks games by comparing their full pathname as strings, so any difference in the pathname could break the toy. You could try to use a wildcarded name: in DxWnd Path field replace part of the initial pathname with '*' (for instance, if the game path is "C:\MyGames\Doom\Doom.exe" replace it with "*\Doom.exe"). Be sure not tu use too generic names od you may hook some program that wasn't intended to.

One thing that is worth trying is setting some logging flag and check if there's a dxwnd.log file in the game folder. Even without reading the file, if dxwnd.log exists it means that the game was hooked but something was wrong, if the file isn't there instead it means that the game wasn't hooked at all.

Please, let me have some feedback.

[John Smith]

Thanks for the response. I'm super tired, so I don't really feel like responding or testing everything. But I managed to follow your advice enough to determine that if I run Dxwnd with administrator privileges, it fixes the problem. I had already used 'acquire admin caps' and that didn't work. Setting the .bat file or the .exe file to run with administrator privileges didn't work either. I tried the asterick trick, but it didn't work. Basically it ran in windowed when I launched .exe from game folder or from Dxwnd program, but when I launched from Steam shortcut it did not work. One thing I found out before you responded was that if I have program pinned to the taskbar, it works. For some reason I can run in windowed from Dxwnd, from game folder, and from pin on taskbar. Let's see, as for the log stuff, I don't know how to do that and just too tired to learn something new right now. Anyway, I'm just going to consider this resolved since I found out that Dxwnd has to be running with administrator privileges. The same thing goes for another program of mine. I use it to adjust a windows size and position. On some games, the program won't work unless I have it running with administrator privileges. It's bad enough that I have to accept those administrator privilege prompts for that program whenever I restart my computer. Not looking forward to having to do it with two programs now, but that is what I might end up doing. Or I'll just continue to keep the game pinned to taskbar and launch it that way. Again, thanks for your help and have a great 2019!