Those with Windows 7 and Windows 8 machines have just one year left to make sure they are able to access the games they’ve purchased through Steam. The world’s most popular PC gaming platform Steam is ending support for those devices by January 1 2024.
Valve says, Steam not going to work on these older operating systems anymore because the newest features of Steam rely on an incorporated version of Google Chrome which doesn’t function with those versions of Windows. To use the Store, Large Library, Downloads, Friends List, Chat, and Community features users will need to upgrade to a more recent version of Windows or install Linux on their system.
In a blog post, Steam developers said that they were not willing to spend any more time and money developing Steam for these old systems. The reason is that it would require them to update the Steam browser to a newer version of Chrome, which could cause the software to become unreliable on older platforms.
They also explained that future versions of Steam will require security updates only available in Windows 10 and beyond. The company recommends that Steam users should upgrade their devices to Windows 10 or 11 as soon as possible, before January 1 2024.
The end of support for Windows 7 and Windows 8 comes from the fact that those platforms are no longer supported by Microsoft, which means they do not receive new virus definition updates or security patches. As such, future versions of Steam will require Windows features and security updates that are only present in newer operating systems like Windows 10 and 11.
According to the latest Steam hardware survey for February 2023, only 0.09% of all users run Windows 7, while 1.43% of them use the 64 bit version. The vast majority of those users are already on newer systems, but for those who have been holding off from upgrading for any length of time this change might be a wake-up call to make the move.