Desktop Version 🖥

A very exciting update today for Desktop users and future Steam Machine users of NonSteamLaunchers!

• Special Desktop Shortcuts: The past couple weeks NSL has been creating .desktop files for your non steam games. These have been normal Steam .desktop files that launches through steam. However, starting today, NSL will be giving every Non Steam Shortcut very special ones. The ability to run your games outside of steam. For the most part , most shortcuts will create a .desktop file like this...

That was a game, and this is a launcher...

and thats not all! The .desktop files will now have access to KDE meaning you can launch these same special .desktop files from your system...

How cool! but wait what if you need to edit a configuration or see how things are being launched? You can simply right click a .desktop file and open it in a text editor or Kate and edit away! this will be made better in the future but for now nothing is stopping you from editing it and launching it how you want to launch it.

These .desktop files will utilize UMU and allow you to play your games straight away. Obviously not all games will use this. But most will. Nothing is changed or different from launching them from steam. This is just allowing fro Desktop users to be able to have more flexibility in how they want to launch their games. There may be some bugs but keep an open mind and feel free to try how things work.

• Uninstallation: When a game or launcher is uninstalled, the .desktop files will be deleted and cleaned up from your desktop and KDE

• The Note System is back: You can share notes again! i didnt realize this was broken so now you can send notes again. Haha im still experimenting with this but it does work!

• Fixed Scanner update process

Below is some of the Patch History...

• Update version number to v4.2.8 (7b09d8c)

• Improve logging for .desktop file deletion (6b9dd71)

• Update runner_cmd assignment in NSLGameScanner Removed error message for invalid GOG game path and set runner_cmd. (db9060c)

• Refactor gameId error handling in NSLGameScanner Updated error handling for missing gameId in launch options. (091cb02)

• Fix kdialog prompt message formatting (9826855)

• Implement .desktop file creation for Steam Machine users Added logic to create and update .desktop files for games, including extracting game IDs and handling launch options. (3a5fdc6)

• Merge pull request #840 from moraroy/dependabot/pip/urllib3-2.6.2 Bump urllib3 from 2.6.0 to 2.6.2 (68d2b95)

• Bump urllib3 from 2.6.0 to 2.6.2 Bumps urllib3 from 2.6.0 to 2.6.2. - Release notes - Changelog - Commits --- updated-dependencies: - dependency-name: urllib3 dependency-version: 2.6.2 dependency-type: direct:production update-type: version-update:semver-patch ... Signed-off-by: dependabot[bot] support@github.com (618eb57) (Commit by @dependabot[bot] on December 13, 2025)

• Refactor Steam AppList lookup and caching logic (be6d19a)

• Merge pull request #837 from tlaufkoetter/patch-1 Fix itch.io launcher name (eac7cd4)

• Fix itch.io launcher name Was listed as "Itch.io" in the supported launchers section. It will only be installed with the name "itch.io" (case sensitive). I only tried it with "Itch.io" and only found out through browsing the source code that it's supposed to be "itch.io". (a7faeda) (Commit by @tlaufkoetter on December 08, 2025)

• Refactor Steam App ID retrieval with caching (6edc8d9)

• Sanitize note content and format output Sanitize content by removing existing [p] tags and replace newlines with Steam-friendly line breaks. (e402a60)

• Update README.md (727a58f)

• The .desktop feature is not fully in the Decky Plugin Version just yet.

Decky Plugin Version 🔌

• Auto delete.desktop files on uninstall (13c4ded)

• fixed major scanner error from last update, fixed ubisoft uninstallation - my bad (829ec95)

• last fix for manifest (1d0cbe6)

• fixed manifest (7e84ba8)

• better check for manifest (552003b)

• reverted some code (4ae58fb)

• fixed send notes feature (2effc45)

Plugin Files

Linux

Windows

1. Download the current Windows version of Decky Loader here (https://nightly.link/SteamDeckHomebrew/decky-loader/workflows/build-win/main/PluginLoader%20Win.zip)
2. Download NSLPluginWindows.exe from here
3. Run NSLPluginWindows.exe first. This will also create the necessary cef debugging file for Decky Loader.
4. Run either No_console.exe or Plugin Loader.exe, depending on your preference.
5. Go into Game Mode or Big Picture Mode to see the Decky Loader plugin and NonSteamLaunchers.

What's Changed

• Fix itch.io launcher name by @tlaufkoetter in #837
• Bump urllib3 from 2.6.0 to 2.6.2 by @dependabot[bot] in #840

New Contributors

• @tlaufkoetter made their first contribution in #837

Full Changelog: v4.2.76...v4.2.8