When starting Star Wars Squadrons from PE (tested with 0.6 Beta), it seems to start minimized.
For many VR games this might be a good idea, so the GPU doesn’t waste rendering an extra image for the monitor. But for Squadrons this isn’t an option, because the game doesn’t accept inputs nor shows menues etc. as long as the game doesn’t have the focus. So it would be good to be able to toggle this behavior (start minimized or not) in the PE game profile.
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Hey mate!
Wait… Im confused 
Start the game minimized? PE is not supposed to start games minimized. Are you games really starting minimized? Ive never seen this behaviour 
@arminelec any idea how this could happen?
This is definitely annoying, but I thought it was a Squadrons problem. It’s not locking itself to the foreground on startup, so when starting the game from either PT or PE, SVR always loads in after the game starts and becomes the foreground app instead.
Doesn’t happen on other games like NMS, so I’m not sure it’s a PE thing.
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If it’s the windowed (“mirrored”) view of the game as some games use I don’t think it’s something You guys can fix… 
I often experience the window to not be in focus (happens with PC2 for example) at start-up meaning I have to Alt-Tab to get it in focus.
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The problem with Squadrons is that happens every time without fail - SVR launch will always put Squadrons in the background. And then you get no input control or audio in the game until you tab back in.
Agreed, in other games it’s only a periodic problem, but not in this case.
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I think for most games that use the VR controllers this isn’t a big problem, because the controllers are also bound to the VR game when it is not in focus. I sometimes even deliberately minimize some games, so they don’t waste GPU cycles rendering on the monitor.
In Squadrons both menu and input devices are not working unless the application is in foreground. So one has to first start Squadrons via PE, then remove the headset to reach to the keyboard, bring Squadrons to the foreground and put on the headset again. Which is a little annoying.
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The fact that they forced active window for controller input to work is kinda a big mistake by the developers (or just a proof they use their own input module which could be a bit primitive). Not many VR games at all requires window focus to have operating controllers. Not even PE 
When it comes to VR mouse interaction, thats another story, as the mouse requires something to lock on, and an active window reads its X and Y position. We have until today not found any way to use mouse interaction without an active window, and Im afraid we wont find any workaround for that.
But anyway… it DOES sound strange that SVR (which I assume you mean is SteamVR) steals focus from the game. Do you use SteamVR mirror window? Or do you always have SteamVR settings window open upon starting SteamVR? in that case, yes SteamVR will steal focus. But if you dont have mirror view activated and no Settings window is open, SteamVR should not steal focus.
You could also try removing the “always on top” option in SteamVR, which could be the issue here?
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I never thought about that but that absolutely makes sense… D’OH! 
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Same here with the non-VR game American Truck Simulator. It works in VR but the game window is not active after start so I can’t click on anything in the game menu with the mouse until I take the headset off and bring the game to the foreground.
Personally my keyboard is close enough for me to alt-tab without taking off the headset, fortunately.
However the other annoying thing with Squadrons is exiting the game. Crashes SVR every time and forces me take off the headset. The devs need to do a lot more work on this title, but it is a lot of fun.
All I can share right now is that PE does not force anything into any apps/games. PE respects the Windows OS citizenship and runs the games in their natural way.
PE also respects the Steam Client and Steam VR APIs and deep-linking mechanisms and launches SVR games properly.
Therefore if something goes wrong with one or more specific apps/games, we can try to trace the issue.
Having said that, if someone would make a short list of apps/games that they play and observe the same issue as mentioned by the original poster, it could be helpful with investigating the issue later and possibly find a proper solution for such games.
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When SteamVR starts I get the message “SteamVR needs to set itself up for App Containers. This is required to allow web browsers to show content on your HMD.” I can either ignore this or click on “Hide” or “Update Permissions”. The dialog reappers each time SteamVR starts, no matter whether I click hide or update permission. Also tried to start as administrator, didn’t help.
Usually I just ignore it (only see the message when I pull of the headset anyways)
Perhaps that is (one of) the reason(s) that puts Squadrons in minimized mode? Other games don’t do this though…
P.S.: “SteamVR always on top” is switched to off.
Hmmm OK I’ve never seen any such message about SteamVR, that’s not a general issue and unrelated.
The original problem is 100% with Squadrons, the game does it and others on here have confirmed the same. Other games such as NMS don’t get pushed into the background when SteamVR launches.
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Seems to be a pretty common issue though: https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamVR/comments/j4h3fa/everytime_i_start_steamvr_it_wants_to_update/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
One post I noticed: “Same thing (different message relating to browsers) on my Index ever since I deactivated VR in Firefox.”
Have you ever run any VR plugins for browsers that could cause it?
I also have this message each time in SteamVR and now I ignore it.
I don’t have browser VR plugins.
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I only get this message when I do a fresh install of Steam and Steam VR on my machine. Once I press the button to update permissions, I never receive this message again.
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Odd, for me this message reappears no matter what I click. Also couldn’t find a conclusive solution in the internet. Some people proposed that running SteamVR as admin should fix the problem. But for me (and the people in the thread where it was proposed) this didn’t fix the problem. (When clicking on “fix privileges”, SteamVR opens the usual confirmation dialog to acquire elevated rights anyways, so it should be allowed to do whatever it tries in any case).
A little annoying but probably unrelated to the minimizing issue anyways, as Squadron also seems to react that way for people who don’t get this message.
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