SteamVR Autostart Manager

[English] | 简体中文 | 日本語 | 한국어

🏪 Booth Link: https://alanbacker.booth.pm/items/8416676

A Windows desktop GUI application to manage SteamVR .vrmanifest registration and autostart toggles more intuitively.

Features

• Automatically detects the Steam installation directory, with an option to select it manually.
• Reads manifest_paths in Steam/config/appconfig.json.
• Parses the app name, app_key, launch binary path, and arguments from each .vrmanifest.
• Enables or disables autostart via Steam/config/vrappconfig/<app_key>.vrappconfig.
• Adds any Windows program, automatically generating an independent .vrmanifest and registering it with SteamVR.
• Backs up configuration files before removing registration, without deleting the target program itself.
• Protects the default steamapps.vrmanifest index from being removed by the tool to avoid affecting SteamVR's recognition of installed games.
• Supports multi-selection in the list to enable, disable, or remove registrations in batch.
• Supports Light, Dark, and System-matching theme modes.
• Interactive backup management: Create, Refresh, Open, Delete, and Restore backups.
• Automatically selects the interface language on first run based on the system locale (Language order: English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean).
• Persists user preferences for language, theme mode, Steam directory, and window size.
• Uses a custom window icon.
• The new UI eliminates continuous loading animations and is more lightweight when resizing.
• Built-in English, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean interfaces, switchable at any time from the top right corner.

Running

Double-clicking steamvr_autostart_manager.pyw is preferred. If Windows does not have .pyw files associated with Python, double-click run.bat or run the following command in this directory:

py -3 steamvr_autostart_manager.py

If Steam is installed in C:\Program Files or C:\Program Files (x86) and the configuration file fails to write, please right-click and run as administrator.

Backups

Click "Backup Manager" to view existing backups, create new backups, open the backup folder, delete, or restore. Creating a backup copies the current appconfig.json, steamapps.vrmanifest, vrappconfig directory, and registered manifest files to %LOCALAPPDATA%\SteamVRManifestManager\manual_backups\....

Before restoring a backup, the tool will automatically back up the current configuration first to ensure there is a rollback point.

Packaging as EXE

If PyInstaller is installed, you can double-click build_exe.bat to generate the file at dist/SteamVR-Autostart-Manager.exe. Author and version information will be written to the EXE metadata (Publisher: AlanBacker).

If PyInstaller is not installed, install it first using:

py -3 -m pip install pyinstaller

Packaging the Installer

Install Inno Setup, then double-click build_installer.bat to generate the installer at installer_output/SteamVR-Autostart-Manager-Setup.exe.

winget install --id JRSoftware.InnoSetup -e

SteamVR Configuration Details

SteamVR/OpenVR provides API interfaces to add manifests, remove manifests, and read/set autostart apps. This tool directly edits the SteamVR persistent configuration files instead of calling OpenVR DLLs:

• Steam/config/appconfig.json: Saves long-term registered manifest paths.
• Steam/config/vrappconfig/<app_key>.vrappconfig: Saves the autolaunch state of individual applications.

When adding a program, the tool generates a manifest under %LOCALAPPDATA%\SteamVRManifestManager\manifests\... similar to the following:

{
   "source": "builtin",
   "applications": [
      {
         "app_key": "local.autostart.example.12345678",
         "launch_type": "binary",
         "binary_path_windows": "C:\\Path\\To\\Program.exe",
         "arguments": "",
         "is_dashboard_overlay": true,
         "strings": {
            "zh_cn": {
               "name": "Example",
               "description": "由 AlanBacker 制作的 SteamVR 自启动管理器注册。"
            },
            "en_us": {
               "name": "Example",
               "description": "Registered by AlanBacker's SteamVR Autostart Manager."
            },
            "ja_jp": {
               "name": "Example",
               "description": "AlanBacker 製 SteamVR 自動起動マネージャーによって登録されました。"
            },
            "ko_kr": {
               "name": "Example",
               "description": "AlanBacker가 만든 SteamVR 자동 시작 관리자가 등록했습니다."
            }
         }
      }
   ]
}

It is recommended to modify configurations when SteamVR is closed, and then restart SteamVR to see the changes.

Support

If you want to support the developer, please consider purchasing the "Support Me :3" option on our Booth page: https://alanbacker.booth.pm/items/8416676

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.