I’m trying to use Virtual Desktop with a Quest 3 and want to skip Steam VR wherever humanly possible. Problem is, this isn’t possible most of the time because I can’t install the Oculus app, which is supposedly required to use the xr runtime and avoid going through Steam.

The oculusSetup.exe installer crashers before showing any UI on my system (Win10 Home x64), making installation impossible. This occurred both before and after upgrading my motherboard, Intel CPU, and ram kit. I’ve gone through a laundry list of advanced troubleshooting over the past month or so, and I won’t get into that here.

Instead, I’m really hoping there is a way to run PCVR games/apps through VD with openxr runtimes that DON’T rely on running SteamVR (for performance/latency reasons), WITHOUT needing to install the actual Oculus app on my PC.