What vrOS is
vrOS puts your desktop windows on floating panels inside your headset. Capture a single window or a whole display, place it where you want it — anchored to the world, to your head, or to either hand — and read your screen without taking the headset off. Your controller clicks and your typing go to the panel you are pointing at, so the window stays a window instead of a picture of one.
It is a desktop application first. vrOS runs in a plain window on your desktop whether or not a headset is connected, and VR attaches as a presentation layer when a runtime is there. Starting vrOS never starts SteamVR, and closing SteamVR never closes vrOS. Everything that touches the VR runtime, the GPU, or a capture API runs in a separate supervised process, so a driver fault or a runtime crash does not take the app with it — the panels come back, in place, when the runtime does.
Everything happens on the machine in front of you. The core app has no network surface, no remote control, and no telemetry.
Start here
Section titled “Start here”- Install — get it from Steam, and what each platform needs. Windows 10 (1903 or later) and 11 and Linux x86-64 are supported; Steam Frame native is in development.
- First run — three skippable steps, where the Dash appears, and how vrOS registers itself with SteamVR so you can rebind it.
- The Dash — the main panel. Overlays, performance, playspace, and settings, reachable without leaving the game you are in.
The rest of the guide
Section titled “The rest of the guide”| Page | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Overlays | Capturing windows and displays, anchors, opacity, curve, capture caps, and saved layouts |
| Performance | Frame timing next to what your PC was doing when it hitched |
| Playspace | Drag and rotate your play space, fix the floor, recenter, reset |
| Settings | General, audio routing, themes, accessibility, language, keyboard, controls, extensions |
| Input and authority | How vrOS hands input back to your desktop the moment you touch your mouse |
| The VR keyboard | Six built-in boards across three languages, Korean and Japanese composition |
| Desktop app | The same surfaces in a window, at desktop density |
| Extensions | What an extension is, and what it has to ask you for |
Two extensions ship with vrOS 2.0.0: VRChat OSC and the Soundboard. vrOS 2.0.0 does not have feature parity with vrOS 1 — the foundation ships first, and creator features return incrementally as extensions. The release notes track what has landed.
When something is wrong
Section titled “When something is wrong”Troubleshooting covers the common failures: no panels, a Dash you cannot find, capture that comes up black, input going to the wrong place. The FAQ answers the shorter questions. If neither helps, support.vros.cat takes a report, and the Discord is where people are.