In the starting month of 2023, gamers on older Windows PCs received bad news regarding the final countdowns of Steam ending support for Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 in 2024, and it’s finally happening! As Steam is a popular platform, the community had decided to drop Steam support for Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 OS. This means that Steam users running these outdated Windows versions will no longer receive any updates regarding the technical support from Valve. They may also experience compatibility issues and security risks while using Steam and its games on their older Windows PCs.
Why Isn’t Steam Working on Windows 7, 8, and 8.1?
The majority of gamers or players are still confused about why the Steam community drops support for Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 OS. It is really frustrating for the users who are using the older operating system. As per Valve, the common reason for ending Steam support for Windows 7 and 8 is that Steam relies on an embedded version of the Google Chrome, which is no longer compatible with the older Windows version.
Google Chrome dropped Steam support for Windows 7 and 8 in early 2023 in terms of Microsoft’s decision to end updates as well as technical support for the older operating system in January 2022 and January 2023, respectively. However, without the Google Chrome latest version, Steam cannot give its user interface which includes the Steam store, the library, chat, and the community features. Moreover, the upcoming version of Steam will require Windows features and security updates to function correctly which are only available in Windows 10 and later.
Steam Drops Supporting for Windows 7, 8, and 8.1
As the new year has started, the Steam community has decided to drop supporting Steam for the older operating system such as Windows 7, 8, and 8.1. Valve didn’t want to dawdle, giving gamers a strict deadline to upgrade their older Windows PCs from January 1st. As the new year has started, people who use the older PCs will need to switch to the latest Windows OS or use Steam in an unsupported state.
Currently, the Steam Hardware & Software survey for November 2023 concluded that 0.81% of Steam users use the Windows 7 and 8 operating system instead of the most recent Windows 11. As Compared with Windows 10’s 53.53% share and Windows 11’s 42.04% share, we can say that valve’s attention is much clearer and better served elsewhere.
As stated on Steam 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, existing Steam Client installations on these operating systems will no longer receive updates of any kind including security updates. Steam Support will be unable to offer users technical support for issues related to the old operating systems, and Steam will be unable to guarantee continued functionality of Steam on the unsupported operating system versions.
In order to ensure continued operation of Steam and any games or other products through Steam, users should update to a more recent version of Windows. We expect the Steam client and games on these older operating systems to continue running for some time without updates after January 1st, 2024, but we are unable to guarantee continued functionality after that date.”
Valve suggests the Steam users who used to operate Steam on their Windows 7 and 8 operating system to upgrade to a Windows latest version i.e., Windows 10 and later as soon as possible. This will ensure that users can continue to delight Steam and as well as listed games without any hurdles. It is pretty simple to upgrade to the Windows 10 version and it’s free for most Windows 7 and 8 users, thanks to a free upgrade from Microsoft that never expired, and users can easily update their computer accordingly.
On the other hand, upgrading the Windows 11 operating system needs hardware, as Windows 11 OS has restrictive hardware components when compared to other systems like Windows 10. To upgrade to Windows 11 from the 8 and 7 Windows version, you must require a TPM 2.0 chip, 64-bit processor, DirectX 12 compatible graphics card and other useful components that are crucial on the PCs. Those users who want to upgrade their PC to Windows 11 must check if their computer meets the minimum requirements before proceeding.
Alternatively, Steam users who don’t want to upgrade the Windows operating system can try using other platforms such as Linux or macOS. With these platforms, users can easily use Steam and play any games with better functionality without any interruptions and gimmicks. Generally, Steam supports these operating systems and offers a wide range of library games. But in certain cases, a few games do not run as expected on these platforms, and some features may be not unlimited like the Windows OS.
It is recommended to check your computer system requirements and other convenient information for each game before buying or playing it on the platform you would like to play. However, it is better to switch to a new operating system or computer if you don’t meet your requirements on your computer and want to access Steam and other included games without any further interruptions.