Steam sucks? Two Clients/Accounts, same PC, same time

[lambda]

Hi folks, I recently came back to Steam and computer gaming, after 10 years of break.
I don't even know if this is the right place for this question but here's my problem:

TLDR;
When I try to open Steam Client twice, the second one seems to kill the first one.
That's a known issue, and it's Valve's fault. Steam's client is poorly written, and the installation isn't user-aware, in 2020.

Please read before answer "VM"
I'm trying to run two steam clients with differents accounts.
I'm not talking of the games, that's already ok.
It's about running steam's client, twice.

Why I need it:
I have a multiseat workstation, with Windows WVD.
Running in a VM with GPU/SSD passthrough.
I want each windows user run his own steam client, with his own steam account.

What I DON'T want to do:
- use any kind of VM, or additional layer like Sandboxie or Windows 10 Sandbox
- arguing about how pointless is having two steam accounts logged on the same PC

What I already tried, unsuccessfully:
- do it while disconnected from the internet
- spawn steam processes from different Windows accounts
- copy'n'paste the executable or the entire folder, and running two different ones
- install it twice, once for user, in their own user folder, and launching it from there
- installing/running Steam's Client, Helper and Service from Administrator or Normal users
- running Steam Client without the Steam Service running

Title
It's just controversial clickbait, I'd like attention on this BIG problem. Steam sucks refers to Steam software itself. As platform is a great idea that maybe saved computer gaming and took it to the cloud/drm era. Thanks Valve.

I just want to play with my wife, and It took months to reason her trying to play.
Please... "Don't stop me now 'cause I'm having a good time".

Thanks a lot to everyone that will keep useful information about why and how this behaviour works,
Luca.

[aiusepsi]

Yeah, the current way Steam is set up is not ideal. I think the basic problem is that Steam originates from the very early days of Windows being a multiuser system; for example, in the beginning, Steam supported back to Windows 98! And there's never been a clean break; you could have continuously updated the same Steam install since the very start and never had an instance where Steam forgot your settings or anything like that.

This leads to two issues: one, that the codebase will have been written throughout with the assumption that there can be at most one Steam instance on a machine at once. If that assumption changes, it will silently break logic all over the place, which means bugs.

Two, you've got to migrate the settings and state of every Steam install from being machine-global to user-local, and that sort of thing is fraught with danger. If you screw up, you might delete a bunch of people's settings, which usually does not make them happy. If, for example, the setting to not display the news pop-ups on launch is forgotten, people will go to the forums and complain about how evil Steam is for deliberately changing the setting back to shove ads down their throat. These sorts of migrations can be fiddly and error-prone and worse, because they're one-time events they're very tricky to iterate on until you can be certain about their reliability.

In summary, I can understand why they've never bit the bullet and done it. It sucks, and if they were writing Steam from scratch today it wouldn't be this way, but there we are.

[cinedine]

While Windows is multiuser, it is not multiple users at the same time. Steam is a singleton application and rightfully so. Don't expect software to support special needs they have never been meant for.

[cinedine]

ReBoot の投稿を引用：

cinedine の投稿を引用：

While Windows is multiuser, it is not multiple users at the same time.

Windows totally allows you to run multiple processes under multiple user accounts simultaneously. I'm doing that right now by the way, to run a dedicated server under a separate user account. Works very fine.

You know what I mean, or at least it should be clear from the OP.
I am not talking about background processes or suspended sessions, I am talking about two actual human users (not even in terms of right management) using the same session simultaneously. Like one of them is writing a Word document while the other plays Minesweeper.

[lambda]

I'll try to answer to each one. With special thanks to Quint the Alligator Snapper, kargor and aiusepsi who answered to my question with sensible words.

ReBoot の投稿を引用：

Its the right way. Spending resources, such as development time on something hardly anyone does is hardly justifiable. You gotta understand that if your use case is an edge one, you gotta help yourself. Which you totally can with virtualization.

Nope, it isn't. In this decade ANY software is build to run in local userspace, even a 200kb dumb executable, without leak your data and passwords across users. And that is for security (and many other) reasons.

Ettanin の投稿を引用：

What you have is a shared server/mainframe case, which is usually not intended for gaming and no, even services like Stadia run containerized.
Steam is primarily a game store, community features are merely a nice (though necessary) addition.

What I have is a normal home PC. I'm running a server edition, but this problem still happens on any windows version, where steam LEAKS CREDENTIALS, game library and settings across different users. Yes, steam is a game store, I don't see the reason why you need to block to share MY store stuff with other user' stuff.
(Stadia is a completely different story and run containerized for scalability purposes and architecture concerns.)

Quint the Alligator Snapper の投稿を引用：

Rather than insulting people who didn't give you a technical answer, consider that other people did read your post before answering, but -- such as myself -- didn't have the technical familiarity with virtualization to give you the answer you wanted.

I'm sorry to hear you took that as an insult, I didn't mean to. In fact I replied you with a "thank you" as well. To be honest, your answer was one of the few acceptable answers in this sea of spam, OT, "just-vm" and steam fanboyism. So I'd like to apologize if I hurt you in any way.

Quint the Alligator Snapper の投稿を引用：

I do want to ask though, can the game(s) in question that you want to play with your wife be played without Steam running?
I say this because in your OP you posted: "I just want to play with my wife, and It took months to reason her trying to play." But later you posted: "Unfortunately I'm not talking of games but of steam software itself. " May I ask, why?

Sure, I'll explain as clearly as I can, cause it can be tricky and my english is not so good.
I don't have problems with games, but with steam itself.
I can run those games without steam. I just don't want to.
I want to use steam's big picture as game launcher, and steam store as market.
I just want a separate game library, credential and settings from my wife.
So, yes, you're solution is surely viable, but that involve NON-using steam. I'm already able to do that. My question was instead, if is possible to use it as a normal software of post windows 95 era.

brian9824 の投稿を引用：

So steam sucks because they don't support a feature that less then .01% of their userbase would even use? Let us know how that works if you try it with Epic, Uplay, Bethesda, or any other gaming platform out there btw.

No it sucks, on the technical side, just like Epic, Uplay and so on, cause it's unsafe and poorly programmed. And please read the first post before posting OT possibly flames.

aiusepsi の投稿を引用：

Yeah, the current way Steam is set up is not ideal. I think the basic problem is that Steam originates from the very early days of Windows being a multiuser system; for example, in the beginning, Steam supported back to Windows 98!
....
In summary, I can understand why they've never bit the bullet and done it. It sucks, and if they were writing Steam from scratch today it wouldn't be this way, but there we are.

Great answer, thank for the contribution. I didn't think back to W98, that would explain lots of things. I can understand as well the fear for such a breaking change. I'm not agree with it, cause it's the classical Project Manager vs Developer problem, but I understand it. Thanks dude!

cinedine の投稿を引用：

You know what I mean, or at least it should be clear from the OP.
I am not talking about background processes or suspended sessions, I am talking about two actual human users (not even in terms of right management) using the same session simultaneously. Like one of them is writing a Word document while the other plays Minesweeper.

That's exactly what we are saying. On the same windows, I have two human users using different sessions simultaneously. Each one writing their own Word document. Please refer to the first post and google for explanation.

[ReBoot]

cinedine の投稿を引用：

You know what I mean, or at least it should be clear from the OP.
I am not talking about background processes or suspended sessions, I am talking about two actual human users (not even in terms of right management) using the same session simultaneously. Like one of them is writing a Word document while the other plays Minesweeper.

That's exactly what we are saying. On the same windows, I have two human users using different sessions simultaneously. Each one writing their own Word document. [/quote]
Windows has actually enough virtualization capabilities that with the push of some third-party code, you get exactly that. Bring two monitors, two mice & keyboards (and gamepads if you so fancy), one tower and there you go.

[lambda]

ReBoot の投稿を引用：

Windows has actually enough virtualization capabilities that with the push of some third-party code, you get exactly that. Bring two monitors, two mice & keyboards (and gamepads if you so fancy), one tower and there you go.

As I already wrote many and many times, I DON'T WANT TO VM.
First of all because that windows is already running in a VM with GPU and SSD passthrough.
Second one, because my question is not related to VM. Thanks anyway.

[ReBoot]

Have you checked if it's possible on Steam on Linux? AFAIK Valve have properly separated user sessions there.

[Brian9824]

lambia の投稿を引用：

brian9824 の投稿を引用：

So steam sucks because they don't support a feature that less then .01% of their userbase would even use? Let us know how that works if you try it with Epic, Uplay, Bethesda, or any other gaming platform out there btw.

No it sucks, on the technical side, just like Epic, Uplay and so on, cause it's unsafe and poorly programmed. And please read the first post before posting OT possibly flames.

It's called being a business. If they spent all their time and effort programming their software for niche features that almost no one uses then they would have a trully crappy software.

Your trying to do something that steam never advertised itself as capable of doing, and getting all outraged that they don't do it despite the fact that no other provider similar to steam does it.

Your refusing to use other solutions such as VM's which is the common way its handled and insisting instead that Steam adjust itself around how YOU want it, rather then working around the software.

Then you make a trolling post saying steam sucks because they don't cater to your individual whims, and post how you refuse to use other solutions and demand that they provide this one solution custom tailored to how YOU want to use it.

Sounds like the definition of entitlement to me TBH.

lambia の投稿を引用：

I'd like attention on this BIG problem.

Hate to break it to you but this is an incredibly tiny problem since it literally effects less then .01% of their usebase. Heck with over a billion accounts on steam this i'd be surprised if you had more then 100 people that would even use functionality like this so its actually closer to .00001% of its userbase

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

lambia の投稿を引用：

Quint the Alligator Snapper の投稿を引用：

I do want to ask though, can the game(s) in question that you want to play with your wife be played without Steam running?
I say this because in your OP you posted: "I just want to play with my wife, and It took months to reason her trying to play." But later you posted: "Unfortunately I'm not talking of games but of steam software itself. " May I ask, why?

Sure, I'll explain as clearly as I can, cause it can be tricky and my english is not so good.
I don't have problems with games, but with steam itself.
I can run those games without steam. I just don't want to.
I want to use steam's big picture as game launcher, and steam store as market.
I just want a separate game library, credential and settings from my wife.
So, yes, you're solution is surely viable, but that involve NON-using steam. I'm already able to do that. My question was instead, if is possible to use it as a normal software of post windows 95 era.

You can launch Steam in offline mode, which may make it easier to instance? The market would be inaccessible, but it should be unnecessary if all you're doing is running games.

Also could you have multiple separate administrator accounts? Or maybe create a way to fool Steam into thinking that it's not running, or fool Steam into being blind to the other administrator's processes?

If the game can run without Steam, you can also use a third-party launcher, such as PlayNite or GOG Galaxy 2.0. I don't know if they offer something like Big Picture Mode, though may I ask why do you (or your wife) specifically need Big Picture Mode?

lambia の投稿を引用：

cinedine の投稿を引用：

You know what I mean, or at least it should be clear from the OP.
I am not talking about background processes or suspended sessions, I am talking about two actual human users (not even in terms of right management) using the same session simultaneously. Like one of them is writing a Word document while the other plays Minesweeper.

That's exactly what we are saying. On the same windows, I have two human users using different sessions simultaneously. Each one writing their own Word document. Please refer to the first post and google for explanation.

Okay I'm actually more confused now. How exactly do you do inputs? Like, who has window focus, Microsoft Word or Minesweeper?

[lambda]

ReBoot の投稿を引用：

Have you checked if it's possible on Steam on Linux? AFAIK Valve have properly separated user sessions there.

Nope. Good insight, but that is out of my business. I need to be on windows. Just guessing if fix the Steam's client is on the roadmap or I can just throw it in the garbage.

brian9824 の投稿を引用：

...Your refusing to use other solutions such as VM's which is the common way its handled and insisting instead that Steam adjust itself around how YOU want it, rather then working around the software. Then you make a trolling post saying steam sucks because they don't cater to your individual whims, and post how you refuse to use other solutions and demand that they provide this one solution custom tailored to how YOU want to use it...

I would agree with you. But, this is a big problem since it affect all users. You just don't see it. But your data are being exposed to people you share the PC with. That's a flaw. It's software engineering not art or a rorschach test. And VM doesn't solve this security problem. Other users of your machine will read your game library, credentials and settings. Moreover, as I said, my Windows is already in a VM with passthrough, so nested VM is not viable, and a total waste. If you had read my first post, is written clearly: "it's a clickbait title, I like steam".

Quint the Alligator Snapper の投稿を引用：

You can launch Steam in offline mode, which may make it easier to instance? The market would be inaccessible, but it should be unnecessary if all you're doing is running games. Also could you have multiple separate administrator accounts? Or maybe create a way to fool Steam into thinking that it's not running, or fool Steam into being blind to the other administrator's processes?

I already tried all your correct suggestions, as written in the first post
Running in offline mode, even without physical internet connection.
Two administrator, two normal users and also one admin and one normal.
Few other tricks.
Nothing changes, since steam client will Run as Administrator, on the global space, and so kills any process of other users. If anyone out there is capable of launching steam in the user space, where it belongs, it's just what I'm looking for.

Quint the Alligator Snapper の投稿を引用：

If the game can run without Steam, you can also use a third-party launcher, such as PlayNite or GOG Galaxy 2.0. I don't know if they offer something like Big Picture Mode, though may I ask why do you (or your wife) specifically need Big Picture Mode?

We don't "need" it. I just want it. Otherwise I could simply run standalone games without need of Steam. But beside that problem, I like steam. So I would like to find a way to be able to use it.

Quint the Alligator Snapper の投稿を引用：

Okay I'm actually more confused now. How exactly do you do inputs? Like, who has window focus, Microsoft Word or Minesweeper?

Both of them. They are on user sessions, on separate monitor, with separate input, with separate focus. In the first post there is an explanation. It's a custom Enterprise edition, similar to the old terminal server. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Virtual_Desktop

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Now I'm curious, does anyone know what happens if you have two user accounts on a computer, start Steam with one of them, then change user to the other account and try to start a different Steam account with that one?

[lambda]

Quint the Alligator Snapper の投稿を引用：

Now I'm curious, does anyone know what happens if you have two user accounts on a computer, start Steam with one of them, then change user to the other account and try to start a different Steam account with that one?

Well that's the problem I'm talking about! Let's say you have two users: Mark and Albert.

1. Mark log into windows, launch steam, log into his steam account and navigate in the market. Then logs out leaving everything open.

2. Then Albert log into windows, launch steams and.. Mark's steam will close.

3. When Mark will go back to windows will find Steam closed and will need to launch it again.

Moreover, the problem is that Albert will see Mark's game library.
And if Mark saves his password, also Albert will be able to log into Mark account on Steam.
This privacy problem and security flaw, is related to the same problem I have. They have the same origin, and the same solution (if any exists).
But people keep saying that is MY problem, LOL.

PS: in the first post you will find a link to an old thread talking of this problem of Steam, that Valve will not fix if no one complain about it.

[cinedine]

Quint the Alligator Snapper の投稿を引用：

Now I'm curious, does anyone know what happens if you have two user accounts on a computer, start Steam with one of them, then change user to the other account and try to start a different Steam account with that one?

The other instance will close. Which is actually logical because the other user is no longer on the PC and his session doesn't need to be open. And you DO NOT want another user being able to hijack it. It's good design in the Personal computer environment.
TC has a special use case with terminals rather than full PCs, which is simply not supported by Steam and doesn't need to be.

lambia の投稿を引用：

And if Mark saves his password, also Albert will be able to log into Mark account on Steam.
This privacy problem and security flaw, is related to the same problem I have. They have the same origin, and the same solution (if any exists).
But people keep saying that is MY problem, LOL.

And that's exactly why Steam tells you do not activate this option if you are sharing your device with other people. Also known as common sense. You also do not hand over you mobile phone with an auto-login to your bank account, would you?

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Feel like I seen this discussion before.

If want to run two Steam clients, then your option is VM. Maybe this aim to what you want.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuJYMCbIbPk

[Blackraven6]

Is there like any single one store/game laucher app, that gives you a posibility to run and log in multiple accounts at the same time without killing the previous?