Stream your entire desktop (remote access)

[SuperMechaCow]

Up until now, options for remote access were limited and typically very laggy. With In-Home streaming, you can now stream your ENTIRE (Windows) desktop, not just games.

What's the practical application of this? I have no idea. I'm just trying to illustrate how big of a deal this In-Home streaming can be.

To do this, you must first TURN OFF explorer.exe on the server computer. If you leave explorer.exe on it will simply open a new window and will make the server PC disconnect. Some versions of Windows allow you to do this in the task manager. Some versions will automatically restart explorer.exe. The alternative is to bypass booting to explorer and go straight into Steam.

This can be done with a single registry tweak. Here is a simple guide, but you *do not* need to follow any steps regarding Big Picture Mode. In fact, it will work better if you skip those steps.

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/bigpicture/discussions/1/864958451556578063/

When you reboot, the only program running will be Steam. None of your other at-boot programs will load, because these are dependent upon explorer.exe.

Next, add a "non-steam game" to your library. You want to find explorer.exe, which is typically located in C:\Windows\. Once that is added to your library, simply login to your client PC and run the "Explorer" shortcut you just added.

Your client PC (regardless of its actual OS or hardware) will now stream your ENTIRE desktop and sound via Steam In-Home Streaming. All of your server PC's at-boot programs will now load and function. What's more, is that now you can stream MORE games through this connection. I managed to launch Sanctum 2 from the library on my server PC from my client PC and play, *ALBEIT ONLY AFTER I HAD SET THE GRAPHICS SETTINGS TO WINDOWED MODE*.

This means, Uplay and Origin games (such as Battlefield 4), or other games that typically have and issue with the Steam Overlay or simply do not play with Steam can be streamed without issue. I am still playing around with this, so let me know if you discover anything about this.

Now all we need is an ARM version of Steam with In-Home and we can play any game we want on our tablets.

Also, your server PC's monitor will show everything you're playing, so I would not recommend this for porn.

[XÆЯO_Vince]

An easier way is to simply add "Notepad.exe" as a non-Steam game, launch it, then press the F1 key inside the stream to open the help dialog window. This will trick IHS to show the full Windows desktop, where you can minimize notepad and close the help dialog. This works on at least a Windows 7 host server.

From there you can launch any windowed program or game set to run in windowed mode.

Once you want to exit the stream, simply click on notepad in the taskbar and press Alt+F4.

[jparker36]

My simple way to get remote desktop has been to use google chrome. Chrome has a remote desktop app, and it is easy to make chrome auto open upon boot. So for in home streaming, if there's a popup which breaks streaming (uplay or origin), i can just open chrome, control the pc, close the popups or w/e and make streaming work. Never have to do any other setup or messing around. Chrome + Steam has meant I have moved my gaming PC into a closet and will never have to touch it again :-)

[XÆЯO_Vince]

Yeah there are many ways to do it. Instead of the Google Chrome remote desktop app, I generally just use TeamViewer, which supports UAC prompts and all that.

Perhaps in the future, Valve will decide to enable full desktop streaming as an option but if not, its not a big deal because there are alternatives.

A headless server set-up is really cool though, I briefly tried it myself and it works great. It makes it really easy and convenient to use Linux on the client PCs and access the headless Windows streaming server only when wanting to run particular games or apps that don't work in Wine.

[XÆЯO_Vince]

Jparker36,

BTW, its also possible to set-up Wake-On-LAN that way you don't even have to push the power button on your headless server to power it on. :D

Are you using SteamOS / Linux on the client? If so you can download an app from the package manager called "wol". After that you can create a simple shell script launcher and pass your host's PC's IP or MAC address as an argument to the "wol" command. As long as Wake-On-LAN is enabled in the host server's BIOS and enabled within Windows via the advanced network adapter properties menu (enable Magic Packet), it will boot right up by clicking the the shell script. I've tried it and it works just fine.

Here's my script as an example:

#! /bin/sh

wol 00:1f:bc:02:04:75

To simplify things even further, you can enable automatic Windows login and have steam load right at Windows startup and auto login as well.

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=5623-QOSV-5250

[jparker36]

Xaero, yes I am using wake on lan already. Basically i cleared my desk off, put all the gaming pc in the closet, and steam everything to my retina MBP. There's a free tool on OSX called wakeme that works like a charm. I also have both chrome and steam start/login on boot or wake. I've been playing rome 2 sitting on the couch on maxed out settings - on a macbook.

Technology is amazing.
Only thing I wish is that we could make the server headless. Seems silly that I have to have a monitor plugged in and powered on to the PC. Perhaps thats something valve will fix in the near future.

[XÆЯO_Vince]

Автор сообщения: jparker36

Xaero, yes I am using wake on lan already. Basically i cleared my desk off, put all the gaming pc in the closet, and steam everything to my retina MBP. There's a free tool on OSX called wakeme that works like a charm. I also have both chrome and steam start/login on boot or wake. I've been playing rome 2 sitting on the couch on maxed out settings - on a macbook.

Technology is amazing.
Only thing I wish is that we could make the server headless. Seems silly that I have to have a monitor plugged in and powered on to the PC. Perhaps thats something valve will fix in the near future.

What happens when you try without a monitor? I've tested my system completely headless a couple days ago...I unplugged the monitor, keyboard, mouse. speakers, etc. everything unplugged except Ethernet and the power cable and it works just fine. I've streamed Skyrim, Arma 2, L4D2, Serena, Portal 2, Deus Ex, Bioshock Infinite, etc. all headless. My server system has a Radeon HD 5850 with the latest AMD Catalyst Windows drivers.

[jparker36]

Hmm. Well they apparently fixed that already in one of the updates. I swear when I first started it wouldn't work without a monitor attached. Thanks, now I can save electricity and not have a monitor in there.

[TurtleTheGreat]

I noticed this when I launched The Secret World. The launcher has a large black area around it that if you click on it, shows you the desktop. It would be neat to be able to use this on a regular basis. Then I could do my Word homework on my Linux lappy.

[XÆЯO_Vince]

Jparker36, I'm glad you got it working. I just re-tested streaming from my headless server and it works fine with the latest beta client. BTW, did you know you can also stream games in windowed mode too? Just press Alt+Enter then Alt-Tab to escape window focus. This is cool because this means you can have other programs running while streaming your games with IHS:

http://s3.postimg.org/57fmnyjtv/2014_02_08_1391905793_1366x768_scrot.png

Lizardbones, why do you need to use Microsoft Word? Apache Open Office and LibreOffice are good enough for most things. Nevertheless, you can just add Microsoft Word as a non-Steam game on the host and it will appear as a non-Steam stream launcher in Steam on your Linux laptop. From there you can just stream Word as you would any other game. You can also install and use Microsoft Office and Word on Linux with Wine.

[[Ø]AtomicWalrus]

"What's the practical application of this? I have no idea."

One practical application is actually game development. Steam streaming is the only remote desktop system that can handle running windowed 3D applications with minimal lag and frame loss. That means you can work from a low-power laptop and still be able to load the game itself as well as a modeling package (like 3DS). Neither piece of software would run properly on the laptop, so normally I'd have to be stuck at the desktop machine to get anything done.

(I know this reply is a year late, but this came up at the top in a search)

[SuperMechaCow]

Necroposting is a sin, and you will burn in internet hell for it.

[∰ᵗᵒᵐᵃᵗᵒ]

Is there a way to stream this to 2 monitors. I have another computer that has another monitor set up to it. I have it set up to extend, but I can't find it to work. The computer has a integrated intel gpu or something like that. Any help anyone? Thanks

[Rabcor]

Pro tip for all you noobs: Disable Aero if you're on Windows 7 to stop those 30fps frame dips.

[roser137]

is this has been fixed ? both notepad and explorer tricks doesn't work anymore.

[MasterMind]

Look up AHK Desktop Streaming in the forums, I created a much better way of doing all of this with more control over the host as well as Multimonitor Toggling, if more people get interested i'll continue my work on it...