Quit Big Picture without quitting Steam or opening Desktop client?

[Loi]

I predominantly game on my PC with a controller (via moonlight or connected TV), and I use Playnite as my primary launcher. However I like the Steam Input Wrapper, and use Guide Chords to launch and swap between various apps and stores for controller browsing.

So the problem is when I quit Big Picture, desktop Steam opens (usually after some delay so it appears on top of the other app I'm already using).
If I minimise Big Picture then the Guide button and other inputs still control Big Picture in the background.
If I quit Steam altogether then I lose the input wrapper.

I'd basically like to never see the Desktop Steam again, or be able to use the input wrapper independently of the Steam "ecosystem" as a separate service. Other wrappers don't play as nicely with the Dualsense Edge or just emulate an Xbox/DS4 controller (blocking native support in things like PS Remote Play).

Any thoughts? It's really hard to search up solutions because it seems I'm the only one who wants to keep Big Picture and ditch Desktop. 😅

Thanks

[RPG Gamer Man]

Big picture can be buggy at times. When i try it alot of times for example, it tends to crash my games on my pc. Not sure why it does this, but it does. So not everyone wants to use big picture mode. Technically big picture mode is older than the current steam UI and such as they been updating them the previous years. Currently they worked on family sharing and this new recording tool.

[Loi]

I've used Big Picture on and off for a decade, it's just that Valve have only now bothered to make it halfway usable since they released the Deck.

But this isn't BPM behaving buggy, it's just the default behaviour of Steam to open the Desktop client when Big Picture closes instead of staying put in the system tray. Ideally I'd just disable the desktop client but I'd settle for the option for it to not load itself up when it's not wanted.