Steam, the world’s most popular PC gaming client, community, and store, will shut its doors to Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 users next year. The cut-off date for Windows upgrade holdouts is January 1, 2024. To be clear, from January 2024, Windows 10 will be the oldest Windows OS that is compatible with the Steam Client.
In a short blog post on Windows 7 and 8 support today, Valve states that users will have to upgrade to a newer version of Windows “in order to continue running Steam and any games or other products purchased through Steam.”
Some reasoning behind the support policy is revealed. It turns out that the newest Steam features “rely on an embedded version of Google Chrome” that offers limited functionality on older Windows versions. It is thus at least partly due to this software embed that Steam must enact a Windows 10 or newer policy. However, with the transition now set in stone, future versions of Steam are also set to rely on feature and security updates that are only present / destined for Windows 10 or above.
While it is somewhat sad that Valve is dropping support for the older Windows OSes, we must remember that Windows 10 was launched in July 2015. At nearly eight years old, with widespread use in schools, homes, and businesses, it is long past any teething troubles. It is admittedly more of a heavyweight than Windows 7 and 8, but there’s a Tiny10 lightweight version of it (and Tiny11 version of Windows 11) for those worried about the impact on their hardware resources.
In the latest Steam Hardware Survey, Windows accounts for 96.4% of gamers. Windows 10 and 11 are by far the most popular versions, with 62.3% and 32.1% of users, respectively. Meanwhile, earlier versions of Windows (7 and 8.1) add up to just 1.9% of all users — and continue to slide in the popularity stakes. There are even 0.09% of surveyed Steam PCs that are still running the 32-bit version of Windows 7.
Those with old machines that users resolutely want to remain Steam connected may be tempted to switch to Linux, or even HoloISO — a PC version of the portable Steam Deck’s SteamOS. However, please remember that despite large strides in game compatibility made since the arrival of the Steam Deck, there are still some Linux and PC Steam games wrinkles.
Regardless, Valve is set to move on from the Windows 7/8 era. Windows 7 originally released in 2009 and was well received (especially compared to its Vista predecessor). Windows 8 came out in 2012, and many disliked the new Start Screen along with other aspects. Windows 8.1 followed a year later, with an attempt to right the wrongs of Windows 8.
Microsoft officially discontinued support for Windows 8 in January 2016, while Windows 7 reached end of life in January 2020. Windows 8.1 joined them at the start of this year. As such, it's understandable that Valve would want users to upgrade to Windows versions that are still supported by Microsoft.
