techradar PC gamers forced to upgrade as Valve ends Windows 7 support for Steam

[EHW Ai]

Quote

According to a new Steam Support update(opens in new tab), "Steam will officially stop supporting the Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 operating systems," effective January 1, 2024. "After that date, the Steam Client will no longer run on those versions of Windows. In order to continue running Steam and any games or other products purchased through Steam, users will need to update to a more recent version of Windows."

Source.

[pio]

Steam REALLY needs to release a "retro" release of Steam, something with JUST the library access.  Like now.  This is going to knock out a ton of perfectly working machines from their respective libraries.  It was wrong when they cut off XP, and its wrong that they're doing this now. -_-

[schuck6566]

Maybe use the SteamOS in a dual boot on the older systems?

[UltraMega]

It's a bummer for certain retro games but it's really not Valves job to support legacy operating systems like Windows 7 forever. Microsoft ended support a long time ago now, it's perfectly reasonable for Valve to do the same at this point. 

[ENTERPRISE]

Yeah this is not really valves lookout. It is not practical to support legacy software indefinitely. 

[Alex]

 

Quote

Windows 7 and Windows 8 Support

As of January 1 2024, Steam will officially stop supporting the Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 operating systems. After that date, the Steam Client will no longer run on those versions of Windows. In order to continue running Steam and any games or other products purchased through Steam, users will need to update to a more recent version of Windows.

This change is required as core features in Steam rely on an embedded version of Google Chrome, which no longer functions on older versions of Windows. In addition, future versions of Steam will require Windows feature and security updates only present in Windows 10 and above.

Although support won't end until 2024, we strongly encourage all Windows 7/8/8.1 users to update sooner rather than later. Microsoft ended security updates and technical support for Windows 7 in January 2020 and for Windows 8.1 in January 2023. Computers running these operating systems, when connected to the internet, are susceptible to new malware and other exploits which will not be patched. That malware can cause your PC, Steam and games to perform poorly or crash. That malware can also be used to steal the credentials for your Steam account or other services.

 

They need to stop using Chrome as a browser embed and move to a Firefox-based fork (or their own... they're big enough now) if they want LTS. It's nothing really to do with Valve but rather Google deprecating support, and I bet this will get missed when people report on this as usually no one reads beyond the headline....
 

Edited March 30, 2023 by Alex

[Andrew]

Not really surprising tbh. Windows 7 will be 15 years old when they drop support and I don't think anyone is using Windows 8/8.1. In fact, them supporting Windows 7 at this point is incredible. Imagine in 2009, software that regularly gets updates that would still be compatible on Windows 98. Let alone Windows 3.1.

 

[Sir Beregond]

9 hours ago, UltraMega said:

It's a bummer for certain retro games but it's really not Valves job to support legacy operating systems like Windows 7 forever. Microsoft ended support a long time ago now, it's perfectly reasonable for Valve to do the same at this point. 

I agree. This is why GOG is a better platform for retro builds as you get the actual installers, then it doesn't really matter what OS you are on.

 

I still have a Windows 8.1 Pro box in the house. I should upgrade it to Windows 10 sometime.

Edited March 30, 2023 by Sir Beregond

[UltraMega]

Anyone who is still on windows 7 or 8 can upgrade to windows 10 for free, Microsoft never ended the upgrade option. 

Edited March 30, 2023 by UltraMega

[pio]

3 hours ago, UltraMega said:

Anyone who is still on windows 7 or 8 can upgrade to windows 10 for free, Microsoft never ended the upgrade option. 

Not true at all.  I cannot upgrade some of my systems that are on 7, missing instruction sets for Win8 and newer.  The systems still work fine, play games fine, browse the internet fine.

 

Yes, I'm aware this is a Chromium based limitation that is causing Steam to be shutdown on older systems.  My argument is there's old versions of Chromium out there, its not like they can't create a "library only" version of Steam for old systems that has an old version of Chromium on it, no online features, and JUST the library of games that you've bought and paid for.  Remember, there's still thousands of games on Steam right now, that state "minimum requirement: Windows XP", but yet you can't install Steam on XP.  Some of these games don't work on newer systems either, so you're paying for a broken title.  This is a problem.

Obviously this is wishful thinking on my part and it'll never happen.  Just stating why this is a problem.

Also, there ARE modded versions of Steam available that one CAN run on systems as old as XP, even today.  They're not 100% though, due to the way Steam launches and updates itself so its hit or miss.  Supposedly one can potentially be banned for it too, as it requires modding Steam core files IIRC.  This too, wouldn't even be a thing if Valve would just release one for everyone.

Edited March 30, 2023 by pioneerisloud

[UltraMega]

1 hour ago, pioneerisloud said:

Not true at all.  I cannot upgrade some of my systems that are on 7, missing instruction sets for Win8 and newer.  The systems still work fine, play games fine, browse the internet fine.

 

Yes, I'm aware this is a Chromium based limitation that is causing Steam to be shutdown on older systems.  My argument is there's old versions of Chromium out there, its not like they can't create a "library only" version of Steam for old systems that has an old version of Chromium on it, no online features, and JUST the library of games that you've bought and paid for.  Remember, there's still thousands of games on Steam right now, that state "minimum requirement: Windows XP", but yet you can't install Steam on XP.  Some of these games don't work on newer systems either, so you're paying for a broken title.  This is a problem.

Obviously this is wishful thinking on my part and it'll never happen.  Just stating why this is a problem.

Also, there ARE modded versions of Steam available that one CAN run on systems as old as XP, even today.  They're not 100% though, due to the way Steam launches and updates itself so its hit or miss.  Supposedly one can potentially be banned for it too, as it requires modding Steam core files IIRC.  This too, wouldn't even be a thing if Valve would just release one for everyone.

I think it just boils down to security and having steam portals running on older unsupported and unsecure versions of windows and chromium is a security issue. 

[UltraMega]

On 30/03/2023 at 13:19, pioneerisloud said:

Not true at all.  I cannot upgrade some of my systems that are on 7, missing instruction sets for Win8 and newer.  The systems still work fine, play games fine, browse the internet fine.

I have never encountered a computer that can run win7 and not run 10. As I understand it, all windows 7 systems are upgradable to 10. If you have a system that can run 7 but not 10, I'd be interested to hear more about it. 

 

Windows 10 has evolved over its lifetime. There may by some older hardware that cannot run the newest version of windows 10 from a clean install, but they can run an earlier version of windows 10. 

Edited April 10, 2023 by UltraMega

[pio]

On 10/04/2023 at 13:57, UltraMega said:

I have never encountered a computer that can run win7 and not run 10. As I understand it, all windows 7 systems are upgradable to 10. If you have a system that can run 7 but not 10, I'd be interested to hear more about it. 

 

Windows 10 has evolved over its lifetime. There may by some older hardware that cannot run the newest version of windows 10 from a clean install, but they can run an earlier version of windows 10. 

Socket 939 won't, and neither will early AM2.  But yet Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quads work fine.  They lack CMPXCHG16b instruction set, which is a requirement for Windows 8.1 x64 and newer.  I can run Windows 8.0 x64 on it or older, or I can run 32bit Windows 8.1 or 10 (11 maybe if I mess with the installer).  But it'd have to be 32bit.  We're talking early dual cores and quad cores with up to 16, to even 32GB of RAM and more on the dual and quad socket boards.

Granted those systems won't play MODERN games, but there's still a ton of games even on Steam itself that have Windows XP or even 98 as the minimum requirement.  Or even Windows 7, thousands probably for 7.  By knocking out support completely, its almost forcing users into TPM and upgrading, just to play games that they paid for.  That's my complaint.

And yes, the Chrome underbelly of Steam is absolutely the problem here, agreed completely.  My original point was, they COULD release a library ONLY version of the client to allow vintage systems to still access games that were once played on them (including Windows 7 systems now).  No social part, no store, no community pages, just a download and play option (or even just a downloader with a steam login to access the games).  They COULD.  I'm not saying they will, clearly that's a pipe dream and will never happen.

Here's an article from when 8.1 was released that goes over it.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2058683/new-windows-8-1-requirements-strand-some-users-on-windows-8.html

Edited April 13, 2023 by pioneerisloud

[UltraMega]

2 hours ago, pioneerisloud said:

Socket 939 won't, and neither will early AM2.  But yet Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quads work fine.  They lack CMPXCHG16b instruction set, which is a requirement for Windows 8.1 x64 and newer.  I can run Windows 8.0 x64 on it or older, or I can run 32bit Windows 8.1 or 10 (11 maybe if I mess with the installer).  But it'd have to be 32bit.  We're talking early dual cores and quad cores with up to 16, to even 32GB of RAM and more on the dual and quad socket boards.

Granted those systems won't play MODERN games, but there's still a ton of games even on Steam itself that have Windows XP or even 98 as the minimum requirement.  Or even Windows 7, thousands probably for 7.  By knocking out support completely, its almost forcing users into TPM and upgrading, just to play games that they paid for.  That's my complaint.

And yes, the Chrome underbelly of Steam is absolutely the problem here, agreed completely.  My original point was, they COULD release a library ONLY version of the client to allow vintage systems to still access games that were once played on them (including Windows 7 systems now).  No social part, no store, no community pages, just a download and play option (or even just a downloader with a steam login to access the games).  They COULD.  I'm not saying they will, clearly that's a pipe dream and will never happen.

Here's an article from when 8.1 was released that goes over it.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2058683/new-windows-8-1-requirements-strand-some-users-on-windows-8.html

Oh yea, sure there are CPUs that would have to run the 32-bit version of windows 10. Are there any that can't even do thsmat though? 

Edited April 13, 2023 by UltraMega

[pio]

2 hours ago, UltraMega said:

Oh yea, sure there are CPUs that would have to run the 32-bit version of windows 10. Are there any that can't even do thsmat though? 

There are, but they're old enough they can't modern web browse either.......  

Edited April 13, 2023 by pioneerisloud