Tuesday, 2 September, 2025 UTC
Summary
A lone Microsoft employee released an unofficial SteamVR driver for Windows MR headsets, called Oasis, re-enabling their use on Windows 11.
The Oasis driver arrives just under one year after Microsoft started rolling out Windows 11 24H2, which completely removed support for Windows MR. This meant Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Samsung PC VR headset owners could no longer use their headset at all, not even on Steam, since Windows MR had its own runtime and only supported SteamVR through a shim.
Matthieu Bucchianeri's Oasis solves this problem, for free. Oasis is a native SteamVR driver for Windows MR headsets, adding direct SteamVR support. No other software is required, except for SteamVR itself.
Windows MR Headsets No Longer Work In Windows 11 24H2
Windows MR headsets no longer function at all with Windows 11 24H2. If you own one and want to keep using it, do not install the update.
UploadVRDavid Heaney
Bucchianeri is a very experienced software developer, having worked on the PS4 and original PlayStation VR at Sony, Falcon 9 and Dragon at SpaceX, and HoloLens and Windows MR at Microsoft, where he currently works on Xbox. At Microsoft he also contributed to OpenXR, and in his spare time he developed OpenXR Toolkit and VDXR, Virtual Desktop's OpenXR runtime. He was also an outspoken critic of Meta's previous OpenXR strategy.
Bucchianeri chose the name Oasis because it was the codename for Windows MR inside Microsoft. He describes his new driver as the result of "deep reverse-engineering" alongside "a combination of luck and perseverance". He claims that while his work isn't breaching intellectual property laws, he won't be releasing the source code to avoid accidentally breaching NDAs "and other obligations".
The Oasis driver includes full support for headset tracking, controller tracking, haptics, buttons, triggers, sticks, and battery state, as well as basic monoscopic camera passthrough. It also relays the IPD value from Reverb and Samsung Odyssey headsets, and even the eye tracking from HP Reverb G2 Omnicept Edition.
The only headset feature that isn't supported is Bluetooth. Instead, you'll need to use your PC's Bluetooth, such as a USB or PCI-E Bluetooth adapter.
UploadVR's Don Hopper has tested and confirmed that Oasis works with his HP Reverb G2, turning what had become a paperweight into a fully functional PC VR headset again.
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UploadVRJamie Feltham
Oasis Driver for Windows Mixed Reality is available for free on Steam. Make sure to read the full installation and setup instructions on GitHub, as you'll need to pair your controllers via Bluetooth and "unlock" both the headset and controllers before use.
The only notable limitation of Oasis is that it solely supports Nvidia graphics cards. AMD and Intel GPUs will not work.
Bucchianeri says this is because AMD does not allow EDID overrides, and AMD's LiquidVR "Direct-to-Display" technology has been "dead technology" for over seven years.
"I have provided AMD with all the technical details that they need in order to make Oasis work on AMD graphics card. It is their choice to support/not support this project and to support/not support their VR customers who have bought their graphics card. Redirect your questions/complaints/thoughts to them, because there is nothing I can do about it."
It's a similar situation for Intel's "Direct Mode" - the company would need to provide him with access.