Spintires Tips

The Problem
After creating a Steam bottle, you can download and install Spintires through Steam perfectly.
When trying to run the game though, a popup appears that states "Performing first time start up, installing DirectX" and after a while disappears with no additional information dialog about the success of the operation and the game does not start. There appears to be a minor hiccup with the first time installation and/or update of some DirectX files.

The Reason
After trying to start Spintires for the first time I search for some useful log file. In the windows logs folder of the Steam bottle I found two log files, DXError.log and DirectX.log.
DXError.log states:
Error: (32) - Sharing violation." regarding the file xinput1_3.dll
DirectX.log states:
InUse: C:\windows\system32\xinput1_3.dll
CabCallback(): Unable to copy C:\windows\system32\DirectX\DX32cc.tmp\xinput1_3.dll

So the DirectX installation/update failed, due to the file xinput1_3.dll currently being in use. The only application running in that bottle is Steam, which initiated a DirectX install/update, that tries to overwrite files, that are locked by Steam itself (The dll file being a XInput one, I suspect Steam uses that for it's Big Picture mode).

So, there are two ways to solve this.

The Solutions
What I did to fix this:

• Open the C: drive of the Steam bottle for the desired game in your file browser
• Navigate to C:\windows\system32\
• Find and delete the file xinput1_3.dll in there
• Click the Play button for Spintires in Steam
• The dialog "Performing first time start up, installing DirectX" should appear again, but this time it should successfully finish the installation of DirectX in the background
• Spintires should start up now

Another solution:

• Exit Steam
• Navigate your file browser to the Spintires folder inside the Steam bottle
• Find the DirectX folder inside the folder _CommonRedist
• Execute the only exe file in the subfolder, being a DirectX installer
• Finish the installation
• Run Steam
• Click the Play button for Spintires in Steam
• Spintires should start up directly now, without showing the "Performing first time start up, installing DirectX" dialog

Have fun plowing through the mud! :)