Valve ends Steam support for Windows 7 and Windows 8

[midian182]

What just happened? The start of a new year brings lots of changes; unwelcome ones, if you're still using Windows 7, 8, or 8.1 with Steam. Valve's previously announced end of support for the older operating systems came into effect on January 1, meaning a section of Steam users will no longer receive updates.

It was back in March last year when Valve announced it would be killing off Steam support for Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 on January 1, 2024. Now that the date has passed, existing Steam client installations on those operating systems no longer receive updates of any kind, including security updates.

Additionally, Steam Support is no longer able to offer users technical support for issues relating to the old operating systems. Valve writes that while it expects the clients and games to continue running for some time, it cannot guarantee their continued functionality.

Users of old macOS versions are also being cut off. On February 14, macOS 10.13 and macOS 10.14 will lose support.

Also read: 20 Years of Steam: From Half-Life 2 to the Steam Deck

The latest Steam hardware and software survey shows that only a small number of participants still use the affected operating systems. Windows 7 64-bit is the most popular of the bunch, found in 0.68% of respondents' machines. Followed by Windows 8.1 (0.15%) and Windows 7 (0.06%). There aren't enough Windows 8 users to push the OS onto Steam's list.

Valve says dropping support for those operating systems is required as core features in Steam rely on an embedded version of Google Chrome, which no longer functions on older versions of Windows. The company adds that future versions of Steam will require Windows features and security updates only present in Windows 10 and above.

Windows 10 remains the most popular version of Microsoft's OS among Steam survey participants, but it has rapidly been losing ground to Windows 11 over the last year. Expect Windows 11 to take the lead at some point in 2024, especially with Windows 10's October 2025 end-of-life date drawing ever closer.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/101369-valve-officially-ends-steam-support-windows-7-8.html

 

[human7]

Makes sense for Steam to end support.

It's interesting how selection bias changes the numbers so much. Per Statcounter, only 26.5% of installs are Windows 11 based, not 41.9%, and Windows 7 is 3.3%, not nearly 0. I guess the majority of that difference can be attributed to enterprise customers staying on Windows 10 while most consumers get Windows 11 when they buy a new PC? In any case, Microsoft has a lot of work to do if they want more folks on Windows 11.

 

[dangh]

Makes sense for Steam to end support.

It's interesting how selection bias changes the numbers so much. Per Statcounter, only 26.5% of installs are Windows 11 based, not 41.9%, and Windows 7 is 3.3%, not nearly 0. I guess the majority of that difference can be attributed to enterprise customers staying on Windows 10 while most consumers get Windows 11 when they buy a new PC? In any case, Microsoft has a lot of work to do if they want more folks on Windows 11.

Steam survey is about gaming applications, start counter most probably includes business laptops which would never see steam installation...

 

[MakeMSGreatAgain]

Sad, but makes sense... a lot of newer games won't work on W7 anyway due to no way to update DirectX. A shame really because I still don't care for W10 and all the crap M$FT did to Windows. I only use Windows at home for gaming, that is it. Everything else I do is in Linux or MacOS.

 

[Ojref]

The real crime here is a bunch of older games that won't work well on 10-11, and there are classic platforms that are curated where people now won't have access to their games for use thanks to DRM. Its still a Steam problem, but they don't care. I have a feeling when W10-W11 eventually gets cut, more people will come to understand why Steam's policy is bad and there should be room for compromise. API/Open source client that only does authentication, you need to D/L the game on PC with your Steam account, etc.

Alternatively, GOG is DRM free.

 

[m4a4]

The real crime here is a bunch of older games that won't work well on 10-11, and there are classic platforms that are curated where people now won't have access to their games for use thanks to DRM. Its still a Steam problem, but they don't care. I have a feeling when W10-W11 eventually gets cut, more people will come to understand why Steam's policy is bad and there should be room for compromise. API/Open source client that only does authentication, you need to D/L the game on PC with your Steam account, etc.

Alternatively, GOG is DRM free.

Or, they need to move on eventually to properly update their client, as is known and stated in the article:

Valve says dropping support for those operating systems is required as core features in Steam rely on an embedded version of Google Chrome, which no longer functions on older versions of Windows. The company adds that future versions of Steam will require Windows features and security updates only present in Windows 10 and above.

Windows 7 is 15 years old. No one but a small minority of "hardcore" gamers would be inconvenienced. And such people are techy enough to either find a workaround, virtualize, or deal with a torrent.

Let's not pretend this is a huge deal, or that support for Win10 is going away soon (or that general backwards compatibility won't help a lot). This has been happening for a long while, and Steam DRM is trivial to crack.

 

[Vanderlinde]

I wonder what the deal is in regards of integrating Chrome into Steam. We all know it's attempting to disable the future use of adblockers, but is also invading lots of users their privacy, and ofcourse, the ads within browsing.

 

[human7]

Steam survey is about gaming applications, start counter most probably includes business laptops which would never see steam installation...

Exactly. That's why it's interesting to see how the numbers are so different, at least it is interesting to me.