How to stop Steam Big Picture opening when the guide button is pressed

guide.md

How to stop Steam Big Picture opening when you press the guide button on your XBox Controller

Scenario: You have an XBOX One Controller, or similar, and to turn off the controller you press and hold the guide button. Unfortunately, even though you have turned off guide button focuses steam in Steam's Controller Settings, the button press still opens Big Picture Mode.

Guide

• With your controller on, open Controller Settings: Steam > Settings > Controller > General Controller Settings
• Using the controller, highlight Xbox One Controller or similar, navigate to Define Layout and press A on the controller

The next step involves remapping the Guide Button to another button and then reassigning that button back to the original. This will leave the guide button unassigned so that the controller can be turned off without Steam getting involved.

• Navigate to Guide and press A
• Navigate to Primary Action, which is your A button and set it back to A. Guide should now be unassigned.

• Press Y to save and then B to close the controller settings
• Test the Guide button now turns off without opening Big Picture.

Thank you so much! was having this issue on my emulated xbox controller through DS4Windows

Thanks!

You da man! This made me really mad, I turned off "Guide button focuses steam" and the big picture would still open up. It's a shame unbinding the guide/controller home button is the only way as of now.

What if "Define Layout" isn't an option? My controllers are connected with the Microsoft dongle, not Bluetooth, if that matters.

Define Layout is not exist for me

the "define layout" button doesn't appear for me either.
Well, at least on windows, you can just go into settings > gaming > xbox game bar and then check the box that says "open xbox game bar using this button on a controller", you may also want to disable the gamebar, as it overrides it. I really hope Valve adds a "guide opens big picture mode" toggle, because I don't like it at all and don't want for it to open each time I turn off a controller lol.

Ok yall, so i found the solution. I don't know if it screws with anything important, but now you must disable the Xbox Extended Feature Support button. This will also force your computer to restart, so be warned.

But it seems that it keeps the xbox button from triggering Big Picture mode, even when steam is open. I don't know if it disables any cool features in games, haven't tested it. But this will allow you to use the Game Bar with the xbox button without Big Picture Mode vomiting onto your screen, interrupting your game.

The Game Bar does function with this btw, I tested it. Hope this helps!

Ok yall, so i found the solution. I don't know if it screws with anything important, but now you must disable the Xbox Extended Feature Support button. This will also force your computer to restart, so be warned.

But it seems that it keeps the xbox button from triggering Big Picture mode, even when steam is open. I don't know if it disables any cool features in games, haven't tested it. But this will allow you to use the Game Bar with the xbox button without Big Picture Mode vomiting onto your screen, interrupting your game.

The Game Bar does function with this btw, I tested it. Hope this helps!

I can testifiy that this seems to work.
edit: as of 2023 this no longer works

But without Extended Feature, I can't remap the screenshot button the the xbox series controllers.

Ok yall, so i found the solution. I don't know if it screws with anything important, but now you must disable the Xbox Extended Feature Support button. This will also force your computer to restart, so be warned.

But it seems that it keeps the xbox button from triggering Big Picture mode, even when steam is open. I don't know if it disables any cool features in games, haven't tested it. But this will allow you to use the Game Bar with the xbox button without Big Picture Mode vomiting onto your screen, interrupting your game.

The Game Bar does function with this btw, I tested it. Hope this helps!

Unfortunately, this didnt work for me. Ive tried removing ALL Xbox controller support from steam through the settings. Ive tried connecting the controller via bluetooth instead of dongle to get the "Define Layout" option to appear. It didnt. Im at my wits end, because I couldnt care less about BPM but I actually DO use the game bar, and this is making it impossible. Every time BPM opens, I have to turn the game bar back on in the settings, at which point I can ONLY open the game bar, but I cant interact with it using the controller in any way. After that, BPM takes over whenever I press the guide button, and the game bar setting is magically turned off.

Uncheck Guide Button Focuses Steam

Uncheck Guide Button Focuses Steam

doesn't work. Already done that, big picture still opens lol.

thou art god. it was driving me crazy

Guys, the most reliable technique is to inject a dll that will intercept xinput commands, thereby preventing the "guide" button from being pressed.

Guys, the most reliable technique is to inject a dll that will intercept xinput commands, thereby preventing the "guide" button from being pressed.

that's the most ridiculous suggestion yet. Overengineered at best and malicious at worst. just unbind Guide from steam, like the guide suggests and you're done with it lol.

Not works for all, for me - not work
So i use injecting

valve is always finding new and impressive ways to create baffling "how do you mess THIS up" design oversights with their software, it always makes me dread having to do any non-basic tasks with steam or especially the steam deck. thanks a ton for saving me and others free time and mental energy with this straightforward guide

To get rid of this button-hijacking virus

Uninstall Steam

You can reacquire your Steam games for free at PirateBay.something

This is a joke, except this is totally what I am doing until Steam gits gud, which will be never

To get rid of this button-hijacking virus

Uninstall Steam

You can reacquire your Steam games for free at PirateBay.something

This is a joke, except this is totally what I am doing until Steam gits gud, which will be never

t. Epic Store drooling idiot.
I don't mind steam, and the issue is easily fixable. I don't mind piracy either, but you should know when to talk about it without sounding like a complete jerk.

To get rid of this button-hijacking virus
Uninstall Steam
You can reacquire your Steam games for free at PirateBay.something
This is a joke, except this is totally what I am doing until Steam gits gud, which will be never

t. Epic Store drooling idiot. I don't mind steam, and the issue is easily fixable. I don't mind piracy either, but you should know when to talk about it without sounding like a complete jerk.

They wouldn't be recommending piracy if they used EGS. Take your own advice.

To get rid of this button-hijacking virus
Uninstall Steam
You can reacquire your Steam games for free at PirateBay.something
This is a joke, except this is totally what I am doing until Steam gits gud, which will be never

t. Epic Store drooling idiot. I don't mind steam, and the issue is easily fixable. I don't mind piracy either, but you should know when to talk about it without sounding like a complete jerk.

They wouldn't be recommending piracy if they used EGS. Take your own advice.

you haven't spoken to many of them, then. the mental gymnastics they go through is incredible.
But provided he's not, he's acting just like a fake piracy advocate, which in truth is just someone salty because he's probably been vac banned from some CSGO game or something.
Besides, Pirate Bay? Really? You want to give everyone's computer's aids? The site is long gone and what's left is a joke of the former self, there are lots of guide on how to actually use torrents.
Take an advice and learn when and were to speak about piracy because this isn't neither the place nor the time.

For the new Steam UI there is the new method :

• Open Steam BP
• Open Settings
• Go to Controller section
• Select appropriate controller (if more than one controller connected)
• Select "Begin Test"
• Now click on "Setup Device Inputs"
• Press appropriate buttons and skip buttons you want to unbind
• Restart Steam

Desired buttons are now disabled on Steam !

For the new Steam UI there is the new method :

• Open Steam BP
• Open Settings
• Go to Controller section
• Select appropriate controller (if more than one controller connected)
• Select "Begin Test"
• Now click on "Setup Device Inputs"
• Press appropriate buttons and skip buttons you want to unbind
• Restart Steam

Desired buttons are now disabled on Steam !

Thank you so much for the update, soooo annoying otherwise!

For the new Steam UI there is the new method :

• Open Steam BP
• Open Settings
• Go to Controller section
• Select appropriate controller (if more than one controller connected)
• Select "Begin Test"
• Now click on "Setup Device Inputs"
• Press appropriate buttons and skip buttons you want to unbind
• Restart Steam

Desired buttons are now disabled on Steam !

Thank you so much for the update, soooo annoying otherwise!

Yep, you the real MVP - confirming that this works as of 23/10/23.

What this is doing (with Xbox Extended Feature Support enabled) is basically manually mapping your buttons - and when you get to the Guide button, you just (press 🅰 to) skip it; genius! (it doesn't bind to 🅰 as that's already mapped 😉)

Noted that it didn't offer to map any of the rear paddles but I shouldn't think that will be an issue (haven't done any tests) as in my case, that's all done via the Xbox Accessories app 👍🏻

Yep, you the real MVP - confirming that this works as of 23/10/23.

What this is doing (with Xbox Extended Feature Support enabled) is basically manually mapping your buttons - and when you get to the Guide button, you just (press 🅰 to) skip it; genius! (it doesn't bind to 🅰 as that's already mapped 😉)

Noted that it didn't offer to map any of the rear paddles but I shouldn't think that will be an issue (haven't done any tests) as in my case, that's all done via the Xbox Accessories app 👍🏻

To add to this, and to look for a cleaner way of doing this, I reset everything (uninstalled Xbox Extended Feature Support, rebooted, re-installed Xbox Extended Feature Support, rebooted), checked the BPM was activated via the Guide button 🤮, it was, then took a clip of the config to the clipboard (as below);

03005d085e040000000b000011056800,*,a:b0,b:b1,back:b4,dpdown:b12,dpleft:b13,dpright:b14,dpup:b11,guide:b5,leftshoulder:b9,leftstick:b7,lefttrigger:a4,leftx:a0,lefty:a1,rightshoulder:b10,rightstick:b8,righttrigger:a5,rightx:a2,righty:a3,start:b6,x:b2,y:b3,paddle1:b15,paddle2:b17,paddle3:b16,paddle4:b18,crc:085d,platform:Windows,

Notice the guide:b5 bit - I removed that and and copied the rest back to the clipboard;

03005d085e040000000b000011056800,*,a:b0,b:b1,back:b4,dpdown:b12,dpleft:b13,dpright:b14,dpup:b11,leftshoulder:b9,leftstick:b7,lefttrigger:a4,leftx:a0,lefty:a1,rightshoulder:b10,rightstick:b8,righttrigger:a5,rightx:a2,righty:a3,start:b6,x:b2,y:b3,paddle1:b15,paddle2:b17,paddle3:b16,paddle4:b18,crc:085d,platform:Windows,

I then clicked 'Setup Device Inputs' and 'Paste From Clipboard', and that's worked a charm.

The nice thing about this method is that it retains all of the other defaults and only addresses (removes) the Guide button from the config.

By doing the previous way (just tapping out the buttons and skipping the Guide button, the config looks like this;

03005d085e040000000b000011056800,Xbox One Elite 2 Controller,crc:085d,platform:Windows,a:b0,b:b1,x:b2,y:b3,dpleft:b13,dpright:b14,dpup:b11,dpdown:b12,leftx:a0,lefty:a1,leftstick:b7,rightx:a2,righty:a3,rightstick:b8,leftshoulder:b9,lefttrigger:+a4,rightshoulder:b10,righttrigger:a5,back:b4,start:b6,paddle1:b15,paddle2:b17,paddle3:b16,paddle4:b18,steam:1,

Without delving into the differences, I think it's just a cleaner way to retain any and all functionality; by only targeting the actual problem and not creating potential new, different issues.

The 32 characters at the start of the config are (probably) specific to my controller (like some form of UUID), so you'll need to copy your own config to get that (if you give this a go), otherwise it (almost definitely) won't work! 👍🏻

For those of you who (like me) end-up here with the intention of burying this mofo for good, those strings are stored in;

%YourSteamDir%\config\config.vdf (probably C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\config\config.vdf)

I'm looking at a way to open the file, remove that string and then re-save it without me having to do anything at all (probably with File.ReadAllLines and File.WriteAllLines), I'll try and keep it device-agnostic so that others can make use of it, too.

I ended-up here looking for a solution and didn't find an easy one, so I have made a Powershell script to remove all references to the Guide button assignment.

It backs-up your current Steam config before opening it and deleting all 'guide:xx' refences, and then saves it (overwrites current config), thus solving the guide button problem once and for all.

Full details on what it is and how it works are on Github, where the code can be see before using - https://github.com/CriticalPoint/Automatically-Disable-Steam-Big-Picture-Mode-Guide-Button

Dropping this here in case it's helpful for someone!

Hope so! 🍻

@CriticalPoint goated 🗿

@CriticalPoint goated 🗿

I must be too old to understand the reference 👴🏻

Check out the most recent updates, I’ve improved the script and working on a fully automated set up tool (help needed if anyone knows PS/XML?).

What I’ve managed to put together is easy, device agnostic, simple, and self-managing; what every PC/Steam/Controller gamer wants. Shame Valve doesn’t see that!

ayo, this guide is a big W. the new interface hides the key binding under the test screen so check there if you don't see it and easy unbind the logo key (I was sick of SBP opening when I was turning my pads off) 11/10 flawless (y)