Valve announced that its Steam online game platform will officially drop support for the Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 platforms starting January 1st, 2024.
Once it reaches the end-of-support date, the Steam Client software will stop working on these out-of-support Windows versions, with Valve recommending users to upgrade to a more recent Windows version to continue playing their games via Steam.
"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," Valve said.
"In addition, future versions of Steam will require Windows feature and security updates only present in Windows 10 and above."
Valve also strongly encouraged users to upgrade their Windows 7/8/8.1 systems as soon as possible before support ends in January 2024 to secure them from malware or other malicious attacks targeting them if left exposed on the Internet.
"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."
Users running Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 can still upgrade to Windows 10 for free using a digital license even though the company announced it would end this promotional offer on July 29, 2016.
Windows 7 extended security updates ended in January
Today's announcement comes after Microsoft revealed on January 10th, 2023, that it stopped providing security updates and technical support for all Windows 7 editions (including Professional and Enterprise).
All editions of Windows 8.1, launched nine years ago in November 2013, have also reached EOS on the same day.
Currently, Windows 7 runs on over 5.39% of all Windows systems worldwide and Windows 8.1 is used by 1.15% of customers, both quickly losing market share since Microsoft's January announcement, according to Statcounter GlobalStats.
Microsoft and Steam are not the only companies giving up on Windows 7 and 8, with a similar announcement by Google saying that Chrome version 110 would be dropping support for Windows 7/8.1 starting February 2023.
Other vendors dropped support for the two out-of-support operating systems before Microsoft announced they'd stop receiving security updates.
For instance, NVIDIA stopped providing Windows 7 and 8.1 drivers last year in October 2021.
The impact of this change will likely be minimal since only 1.58% of users are still using Windows 7 while 0.36% run Windows 8.1, according to the Steam February 2023 Hardware & Software survey.
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Comments
bluto4x - 2 years ago
It appears that this will impact 1.58% of users (Win 7 + Win 7 64-bit) rather than just .1% according to the info-graphic.
In other news, Windows 11 still giving gamers headaches.
serghei - 2 years ago
You're right, fixed.
Dragongirl - 2 years ago
So in other words, I wont be able to play Skyrim on Windows 7 anymore next year {I dont evne have my windows 7 machine hooked to wifi anymore so it shouldnt be affected, right ?}
h_b_s - 2 years ago
At some point Steam will eventually ask you to log in so it can call home. Whether that's tomorrow or a year from now, it won't go indefinitely without asking for a log in. This will definitely be the case if your Windows 7 system has to be rebuilt due to a hardware problem. Steam won't install Skyrim even from a backup without calling home to see if you have a legit license. Remember, Steam's TOS explicitly states that you're not purchasing anything. It's more of a one time fee rental. They can block access to games you've already installed or backed up and there's really nothing you can do about it.
There's a legal way around this, however. GOG.com has Morrowind, Oblivion, and the various versions of Skyrim. You can purchase them for nominal amounts when they go on sale. No DRM, no Steam annoyances, and they will install on any Windows machine any number of times without any gatekeeping. You don't even have to deal with the useless updates they keep pushing out to SE and AE that keeps breaking SKSE so long as you don't use Galaxy to keep them updated. It's an all around better experience IMO, especially if you use a lot of mods in your games. I did this recently myself once they became available there. Now there's no need at all to have Steam if I want to play Skyrim nor do I have to deal with Bethesda breaking SKSE every few months and the hoops you have to jump through to prevent it because Steam's devs can't figure out how to allow users to only update games upon explicit manual request.
xafase - 2 years ago
Weird for a company that made a handheld to get away from one monopoly is still following another. Chromium might be open sourced, but it will not do anything daddy Google doesn't like.
noelprg4 - 2 years ago
while Google had already dropped Windows 7 & 8.x support in early 2023 for their Chrome browser versions 110 & later and while Steam plans to end Windows 7 & 8.x support in January 2024, Mozilla on the other hand will support Windows 7 & 8.x with their Firefox browsers until sometime in late 2024 as noted here:
https://winaero.com/firefox-will-support-windows-7-and-8-1-until-2024-via-the-esr-channel/
ThomasMann - 2 years ago
First of all, Win7 is still supported with updates, anybody spreading this false information is probably lying on purpose. I am sure people who can change from Google to Mozilla, will rather change from steam to something else, than not stick with Win7.
Even if the security updates will eventually stop, you still need to behave like an idiot before you can possibly discover malware on your Win7 machine.
I have Win11 installed in a VM, I could play games there if I wanted. My desktop uses an a decade old i7 and as it was totally easy to get around this one of MS's no-nos, as easy it will be to get around anything else.
teethlikeglass - 2 years ago
No one said Win 7/8 is not still supported with updates. But it will reach EOL and lose support mid January in 2023. As a result many software vendors will be pulling the plug as well as it will be harder to support those platforms.
jeando - 2 years ago
"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" is a nice description of Win 11 (& Chrome), isn't it ?