Leaked footage from last year’s Microsoft hackathon – an internal event where employees prototype ideas and present them to leadership and investors – shows an attempt at getting Windows 11 to run on Steam Deck.
The presenter explained their team within Microsoft decided to tackle “creating a truly optimised Windows experience for the handheld PC market.”
Steam Deck runs on Valve’s own Steam OS, but is capable of running Windows (though not without some caveats).
The presentation shows the team’s end results, walking through the set-up process and showing the handheld UI. Several different game launchers could be installed and run. Although the experiment was technically a success, there were still some issues around optimisation and controls.