How to run another .exe in an existing proton wine prefix

Steam_Proton_Exe.md

Running games through Steam's Proton is great. But what if there is a secondary exe or configuration application bundled with the game? How can you launch it if Steam itself only launches the game?

Simply run this command in a terminal:

cd /path/to/steam/steamapps/compatdata/20920/pfx

STEAM_COMPAT_DATA_PATH="/path/to/steam/steamapps/compatdata/20920" WINEPREFIX=$PWD \
    "$HOME/.steam/root/steamapps/common/Proton 5.0/proton" run ./drive_c/path/to/custom_application.exe

Where 20920 is the game id.

First you cd (change directory) to the proton prefix in question. If you don't have any custom steam libraries it likely will all be within your home directory. To find it easier you may run find . | grep compatdata from ~/ and when you find it, cd to it.

Real world example:

cd /media/michael/SSDGAMES/steam/steamapps/compatdata/20920/pfx

STEAM_COMPAT_DATA_PATH="/media/michael/SSDGAMES/steam/steamapps/compatdata/20920" WINEPREFIX=$PWD \
    "/home/michael/.steam/root/steamapps/common/Proton 5.0/proton" run \
    ./drive_c/flawless/FlawlessWidescreen.exe

Wstart

Someone in the comments below created a bash script that makes this easier: https://gist.github.com/michaelbutler/f364276f4030c5f449252f2c4d960bd2?permalink_comment_id=3921629#gistcomment-3921629

Bit of an out there scenario I could use some help with. I'm running a non-steam game that has a mod requiring an exe to run within it's same prefix to configure. I tried running the command at the top here with the, as far as I can tell, correct paths substituted

STEAM_COMPAT_DATA_PATH="/mnt/{second hard drive}/Tark" WINEPREFIX=$PWD "/home/freak/.local/share/Steam/compatibilitytools.d/GE-Proton11-5/proton" run /mnt/{second hard drive}/SPT/Greed.exe

The 'Tark' folder seems to contain the same files found in a steam compatdata as listed in the original example, but is also the location of the prefix. The exe and files it adds/modifies are in the parallel 'SPT' folder (which does raise another concern as to whether it will be able to do that without some extra step) I must be missing something though, because the output reads

ProtonFixes[28143] WARN: Skipping fix execution. We are probably running a unit test. Traceback (most recent call last): File "/home/freak/.local/share/Steam/compatibilitytools.d/GE-Proton11-5/proton", line 2736, in <module> g_session.init_session(sys.argv[1] != "runinprefix") File "/home/freak/.local/share/Steam/compatibilitytools.d/GE-Proton11-5/proton", line 2546, in init_session g_compatdata.setup_prefix() File "/home/freak/.local/share/Steam/compatibilitytools.d/GE-Proton11-5/proton", line 1153, in setup_prefix steamdir = os.environ["STEAM_COMPAT_CLIENT_INSTALL_PATH"] ~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "<frozen os>", line 685, in __getitem__ KeyError: 'STEAM_COMPAT_CLIENT_INSTALL_PATH'

and the program does not launch. What's going on here? Have I messed up something simple, is more information needed? Might there be a better way of going about this, like protontricks or Lutris (trying that as well but not having much luck)

Edit: ooohh is this Tarkov and SPT?!

I don't know the full details but I have worked with the following scenario with NFS Heat and it's Mod Manager Frosty.

Bit of an out there scenario I could use some help with. I'm running a non-steam game that has a mod requiring an exe to run within it's same prefix to configure.

So, first I ran the vanilla game, made sure it works and let the game's Proton profile be created.

Then, I used to ProtonTricks via double clicking the mod manager .exe file and launching it via ProtonTricks and selected the game's Proton profile.

Ideally, now the modmanager.exe will run within the game's Proton profile and have access to the files the game created within the Proton profile etc.

Sometimes, (like with NFS Heat and Frosty), the mod manager would need additional files within the Proton profile which the game did not need. For example, with Frosty, I needed dotNET 8/9/10 depending on the build of Frosty which NFS Heat did not. Which is why Frosty did not launch for me even when NFS Heat worked fine within the same Proton profile.

ProtonTricks can be used to add these dependencies too into the game's Proton profile.

Edit: Also, the compatdata folder might be wrong imo.

Use ProtonTricks, select Tarkov's Proton profile, then select "default profile" and in the next window, click on "Browse the files within the Proton profile" or something like that. This will open the actual folder for the Proton profile for Tarkov