DxWnd has two documented ways of getting between a game and Windows: the usual GUI hook, where DxWnd stays resident and attaches when a profile launches — and proxy mode, where copies of DxWnd’s own DLLs are placed in the game’s folder so the game loads DxWnd itself. The download bundle includes the proxy DLL set for exactly this purpose. Proxy mode is the escalation path, not the default: this guide explains how each mode works, the situations where proxy succeeds after the hook failed, and the real risks that mean you should try the GUI first. It is part of our DxWnd settings guide series.
Mode One: The GUI Hook (The Default)
In normal use you run DxWnd, it sits in the background, and when you launch a game from your profile list it attaches — hooks — into the game process as it starts, intercepting the fullscreen, timing and input behaviour the profile specifies. Nothing is written into the game’s folder; remove DxWnd and the game is exactly as it was. This is the mode every guide on this site assumes, including the ordered checks in our DxWnd not working checklist, and it works for the great majority of titles. Its structural weakness is timing and identity: DxWnd has to catch the right process at the right moment, and games that start through launchers, spawn child processes, or hand off to a differently-named executable can slip past the catch.
Mode Two: Proxy DLLs
Proxy mode removes the race. Windows programs load their graphics and input libraries — files such as ddraw.dll, d3d8.dll, d3d9.dll, dinput.dll, dsound.dll or opengl32.dll — and Windows searches the program’s own folder before the system folders. The DxWnd bundle’s proxy set exploits that search order: copy the proxy DLL matching the library your game uses into the game’s folder, and when the game starts it loads DxWnd’s version, believing it is the system’s. That DLL then brings DxWnd’s machinery into the process from the inside and applies your profile. There is no moment to miss, because the game itself does the loading — which is why proxy mode reaches games the GUI hook cannot: stubborn launchers, chained executables, and titles whose real game process is not the file you can point a profile at.
When Proxy Mode Is the Right Escalation
Work up to it, in this order. First, exhaust the ordinary causes: the checklist order exists because most “unhookable” games turn out to be a wrong path, a launcher standing in front of the real executable, or a profile that was never launched from DxWnd. When those are genuinely ruled out — the game demonstrably starts, runs, and ignores a correctly built profile — proxy mode is the documented alternative the bundle provides for. It is also the natural fit when the game must be started from somewhere else (a store client that insists on launching it) and DxWnd cannot insert itself into that chain from outside.
Choosing the right proxy DLL is a matching exercise: the file you copy should correspond to the library the game actually loads for its graphics or input — a DirectDraw game wants the ddraw proxy, an early Direct3D title the matching d3d one. Copying the whole set in “just in case” is not thorough, it is clutter: each extra DLL is another file the game might load in an unexpected order and another thing to remove later.
Applying It, Step by Step
The sequence matters. First, build and save the game’s profile in the GUI exactly as you normally would — proxy mode changes how DxWnd gets in, not what it does once inside, so the settings you tuned remain the settings that apply. Second, look in the game’s folder and note any existing file with the same name as the proxy you intend to use; back it up before replacing anything. Third, copy in the single matching proxy DLL from the bundle’s proxy set. Fourth, launch the game the ordinary way — from its own shortcut or store client — since the whole point is that the game now loads DxWnd itself. If the picture windows correctly, you are done; if the game fails to start, remove the proxy file, restore any original, and the experiment has cost you nothing but minutes.
The Risks, Stated Plainly
You are putting files inside the game’s installation, and that has consequences the GUI mode never has. Some games already ship their own wrapper DLLs in their folder — community patches and re-releases do this often — and overwriting one destroys whatever it was doing. So: before copying anything in, look at what is already there, and back up or rename any same-named original so you can restore it. Second, antivirus software is understandably suspicious of unfamiliar DLLs sitting in game folders; a proxy file may be flagged or quarantined, and if that happens the correct response is the verify-first routine in our antivirus false positive guide — confirm hashes, then decide — never a blind exclusion. Third, store clients that verify game files may “repair” your proxy away or restore originals, which is not DxWnd failing; it is the store doing its job, and re-applying the proxy is part of the arrangement.
The saving grace is reversibility: proxy mode’s footprint is exactly the files you copied. Delete them (and restore any originals you renamed) and the game is back to stock — the cleanest uninstall any compatibility tool offers.
The Short Version
GUI hook first: it covers most games and touches nothing. Escalate to proxy mode when the hook structurally cannot reach the game — launchers and process hand-offs — and treat it with the respect folder surgery deserves: match the DLL to the game’s library, back up originals, expect possible antivirus attention, and remember that removal is total. Both modes apply the same profiles from the same settings dialog; they differ only in how DxWnd gets through the door. If neither mode has worked yet and you have not installed the current build, start there — our download page always points at the latest version.