Buying games using Steam with Wine

OK, so for the first time I found I was having problems purchasing a game in Steam using my wine setup.

I’ve only just got the sound back in Team Fortress 2, and now this?!

Well, I’ve got a solution for you. The problem appears to be with the Wine implementation of iexplorer. The issue is you can click on the purchase button as often as you like, but it won’t take you to anywhere.

I’m running wine 1.1.5 and Fedora 10 Beta

My solution is thus:

Using your web browser in Linux (outside of wine) goto the Steam page and goto http://store.steampowered.com

Navigate to the game you wish to purchase and click on purchase, for example I’m buying Garrys Mod so I search for it and click purchase.

It then presents you with a Got Steam? popup:

With that window selected press Ctrl+U to view the source, you’re looking for a section like this:

class="gotSteam_yes" onmouseover="this.className='gotSteam_yes_ovr';" onmouseout="this.className='gotSteam_yes';" onclick="opener.location.href='steam://purchase/218'; window.close();" >Yes, I already have Steam installed!

The important bit is the onclick section.

Copy the bit between the ” ‘s ” so for my game, Garrys Mod, its:

steam://purchase/218

This is a trigger for steam to navigate to the purchase game section.

Now we know where to get the game, we can instruct Internet Explorer in Wine to open it, the command for my setup is:

env WINEPREFIX=~/.wine wine "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" steam://purchase/218

This will then trigger Steam to load and prompt you with the purchase section.

Job done. Its a bit of a pain, but how often do you buy games really?

11 comments

rusty November 4, 2008 2:51 am

hoo ever gets this u ples tler me wheele i can get this game at b/c i owas what that game four ever

lee November 5, 2008 12:41 am

To get Garrys mod you need Steam and a Source Engine Game. So for example if you buy Counter Strike:CS you could then buy Garrys Mod, of if you had Half Life 2 you could also.

One of the easiest ways to get Garrys Mod and loads of other great games is the Orange Box: http://orange.half-life2.com/

James April 15, 2009 6:10 pm

Thank you so much! This is exactly what I needed. Buying games is no trouble if you boot into windows, but there is no way to install third party mods without this method.

lee April 15, 2009 10:59 pm

No problem James, anything I find that I struggle with I always try and put a note of how I managed it on my website here, even if just to remind myself.