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.

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)