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Right, my scenario is that I have a Linux system set up and I was thinking about maybe setting up a Windows 10 dual boot, for reasons.

The problem is that I like gaming, and I have a hard drive formatted to ext4 I've been using on Linux to play games, most of these games are in fact Windows native games being run through Wine or Proton.

I know Windows 10 can read ext4 with third party software (like ext2fsd), but can I get Windows to execute these games, for example by having a steam library on the ext4 partition and running games off of it?

phuclv
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Cestarian
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3 Answers3

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If it's an *.exe file stored on the ext4 partition then of course Windows can run it, unless the file is not meant for that architecture. But it'll be better to store on a Windows native file system

If it's a Linux ELF file then you can run it under WSL only in case it's a CLI executable, or a light GUI app (after installing an X server on Windows)

phuclv
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What works/worked for me with the various games (QuakeWorld thru Quake3, Return to CW, the Unreal series, etc) is to install native binaries on both OSes and then on the Linux side symlink the Windows side user-directories into the Linux user-directory location(s). Binaries native in each OS, config and downloaded maps, etc. shared without pain.

Same technique can work for sharing things like Firefox and Thunderbird profiles on a dual boot system.

ivanivan
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I know that this thread is quite old but I would like to propose the right answer for people who want to do this in future :- By default,using ext2fsd you can mount read and write to the ext4 partition but will encounter a network error when trying to execute exe files, To counter this error you want to automatically enable "webclient.service", this will enable you to execute .exe files on your machine. Be sure to also set it automatic so it is automatically executed every time your system starts up.

Arnav Agarwal
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