Steam no longer supports Windows 7, 8, and 8.1::Customers sticking to the good-old (and dead) Windows 7 now have one more reason to ditch the operating system: as of January 1, 2024, Steam no longer supports Windows 7, 8, and 8.1.
Linux
Steam no longer supports Windows 7, 8, and 8.1
Submitted 10 months ago by L4s@lemmy.world [bot] to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.neowin.net/news/steam-no-longer-supports-windows-7-8-and-81/
Comments
spudwart@spudwart.com 10 months ago
GenderNeutralBro@lemmy.sdf.org 10 months ago
It uses Chromium on Linux too. It uses DRM on Linux too.
The real answer is GoG.
LainOfTheWired@lemy.lol 10 months ago
Honesty for a lot of older games gog is the answer. A lot of older games just don’t run well or at all on proton.
Though you could also just get an old console to play them on and never worry about updates breaking things again.
exocrinous@lemm.ee 10 months ago
Fuck GoG
Virulent@reddthat.com 10 months ago
Nah, gog doesn’t do anything to suppory Linux. Valve is the reason Linux gaming is as good as it is. Pretty much all the games that are on gog are also drm free on steam.
soulfirethewolf@lemdro.id 10 months ago
Why does it matter if Steam uses Chromium on Linux. It’s not like Gecko dropped embed support or anything
corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 10 months ago
The “let them eat cake” cry for social media.
spudwart@spudwart.com 10 months ago
Yes, except If cake were free and accessible to anyone regardless of silverware or plates.
btaf45@lemmy.world 10 months ago
It is ridiculous that Steam won’t let you play your games you payed for outside of steam. Games that you’ve played for years on Windows 7 suddenly no longer play. Steam is like a DRM system that suddenly stops working and makes all the stuff you bought worthless.
LiveLGNProsper@lemmy.world 10 months ago
What if a security exploit happens to affect that older version of Steam that’s no longer updated and somebody’s able to hack your account change your password change your email now they have a brand new entire steam library that you no longer have anymore. Would you rather that? This is more of them covering themselves legally, so if that were to happen, they cannot be sued
btaf45@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Would you rather that?
I would rather Steam let me play all my games I legally purchased on Windows 7 outside of steam. If Steam is not going to work on Windows 7 than stay the hell out of the way and let me play the games I bought and have installed on my computer.
Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
Are you running an OS that hasn’t received a security update in a year (if you purchase the ESU packages)???
Dude, at least move on to Windows 10 or something, that’s just you taking bad decisions at this point.
btaf45@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I like Windows 7 precisely because I still have complete control over my computer. Microsoft cannot brick my computer on a whim like they have the power to with later versions of windows.
Disposable_User@lemmy.world 10 months ago
You’re right with what you said except for Steam is not like DRM. Steam is DRM!
People will defend Valve with tooth and nails, but like every other digital system, one day it will fuck with their users (my guess is when Gabe Newell retires).
I can barely wait for that day, to see thousands of posts of users crying, because they never purchased anything, only rented! ᕕ(ᐛ)ᕗthehatfox@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Plenty of people hated Steam when it first came out, it was a controversial thing when games started to require it.
Steam has only become as popular as it is because Valve responded to much of that criticism, and improved it enough to become “acceptable” DRM in the minds of most gamers. People defend it because it came to work (mostly) seamlessly and offer additional beneficial features. Unlike many other far jankier platforms/launchers which have been developed with minimum effort as more transparent cash grabs.
A DRM free world be be ideal, but we rarely get an ideal world, so people settle for the least worst instead.
AbsoluteChicagoDog@lemm.ee 10 months ago
Steam is literally DRM. But nobody wants to acknowledge that.
Voyajer@lemmy.world 10 months ago
It’s a store and content downloader, buy games that don’t implement steamworks and you can copy the install folder and keep playing on windows 7 just fine.
TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I’m sorry I hurt your feelings.
TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Steam isn’t DRM, it’s a game storefront/downloader that offers developers the option of DRM when they publish their game.
Plenty of games have zero DRM, and plenty of games do. I wish they’d make it clearer which do and which don’t, but that’s a separate issue.
rush@lemm.ee 10 months ago
Note that dropping support for Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 came as part of a butterfly effect of the Chromium project - which Steam depends on - dropping support.
HeyLow@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 months ago
Yeah I don’t blame valve for Microsoft dropping security updates and neglecting the last good version of windows. I’ve switched to Linux where this will never happen.
Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
It’s a Chromium issue, not a Windows issue.
lemann@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 months ago
It is ridiculous that Steam won’t let you play your games you payed for outside of steam
Very easy to run your previously purchased steam games without Steam. Search “Steam emulator”, follow the GitHub or Codeberg link, and problem solved…
Won’t help with games that use their own custom DRM though.
btaf45@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Thanks! I will try.
n3cr0@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I bet, we don’t find a single Windows 8 user who uses Steam on that system. Similar applies to Win7.
toddestan@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Not anymore since it no longer works.
I was still using Steam on Windows 7 as late as last month. Losing access to Steam was one motivation to finally upgrade my computer.
topinambour_rex@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Why not switch to Linux? There is several ones which works well with steam
wolfshadowheart@leminal.space 10 months ago
Win 8 was listed just under 1%
Halcyon@discuss.tchncs.de 10 months ago
Wrong, I used Steam under Win 7 from time to time until December. For some games it doesn’t really matter and I use old machines for fun.
AzureRT@reddthat.com 10 months ago
I used to be a Win8 user who had Steam
corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 10 months ago
We’re a GoG-first house, here.
I get that steam dropping win7 was unavoidable based on their shitty choice of browser base, but the alternative was only Firefox and we know how Mozilla-the-app went.
Anyway, GoG gives us control over our purchased copies, and I like that.
thehatfox@lemmy.world 10 months ago
There was a time when software didn’t need an entire browser engine to run. We used to call them native applications.
Although looking at how small the pre-Windows 10 customer base is I imagine Valve would have considered it not commercially viable to continue supporting however easy maintaining the codebase was.
GenderNeutralBro@lemmy.sdf.org 10 months ago
Why pay for DRM when there’s a legal, user-friendly alternative? GoG is the best. Proof that we can still have nice things.
I don’t go as far as to boycott Steam, but GoG is my first choice.
Disposable_User@lemmy.world 10 months ago
But, how about my funny and stupid reviews on the store page, and my useless badges and cards? /s
virtueisdead@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 months ago
GoG or itch only, launch with lutris. I just don’t want to risk putting up with this.
EddyBot@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I’m not sure why people blame mostly Google for this
Microsoft stopped supporting them long time ago first, in case of Windows 7 it’s almost 4 years nowKevin11@lemdro.id 10 months ago
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
My setup (it has been destroyed by Gabe)
wax@lemmy.wtf 10 months ago
*Google
smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de 10 months ago
Direct purchace (if dev is trusted) > GOG > Steam > anything else
candyman337@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
Not really Steam’s fault, their app is built in a chromium browser, which stopped supporting those OSes a few years ago. A perfect example of Google having too much control over the Internet. This is what happens when big companies are allowed to purchase their competitors.
I wish someone would build a FOSS browser. It would be quite the endeavor though.
thehatfox@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Google (or any other browser vendor) never forced anyone to rely on a web browser engine to develop desktop applications.
This is what happens when developers make trade-offs for convenience at the expense of control.
candyman337@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
No they never forced them but they said “hey here’s this really awesome sandboxed platform that runs on almost any os, and it’s a modern browser!” That’s really enticing to a platform like steam where most of their app is web based. Steam isn’t a desktop application, it’s a hybrid application that needs a web browser. Do you know how hard it is to upkeep a modern browser? There’s a reason it’s pretty much only chromium and Mozilla making browsers. It’s not laziness, it made sense, and Google was the only one making anything like that at the time for developers to use.
Once Google had the market share, they started making changes that they knew would affect everyone using their platform, and that’s how they wanted it.
LemmyIsFantastic@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Windows 8 is over 10 years old and was EoL years ago. No distro is maintaining that level of support outside of corporate and even that’s in the specialized more expensive custom contracts.
btaf45@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Nobody needs Steam’s “support”. They just need Steam to unlock their DRM for games that they have been playing for years and Steam has now broken.
Disposable_User@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Yeah, right… it’s my fault that Valve decided to use Chromium crap in their client.
Fanboys don’t even question themselves if it didn’t made sense to have a lite version of the client without the browser, you know, to play games! (͡•_ ͡• )
candyman337@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
Never said it was your fault, I explicitly said it was Google’s doing but ok be mad if you want to
BaardFigur@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I’ve used Steam since before Chrome was a thing. So you happen to know what they uses before? Internet Explorer?