Difficult months are coming if we have an old computer. The passage of time is unforgiving and, little by little, the systems that have accompanied us for years will lose their support. Recently, Microsoft announced the end of Windows 10, confirming that users will be left behind unless they come from companies willing to pay.
If we are still using an old system like Windows 7 or Windows 8, the situation is even worse. Microsoft has already dropped support for these systems, so we are in potential danger if security vulnerabilities are discovered; And the worst thing is that the programs can stop working or be abandoned in turn.
For example, last year Google announced the end of support for millions of computers, confirming that Chrome would only be available for Windows 10 and Windows 11. And now it’s the turn of another major, Valve , and its Steam platform.
End of Steam support
Steam will no longer support Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 starting January 1, 2024; So we only have a few weeks, although the truth is that this decision was already announced at the beginning of the year. The end of support means that many gamers who are still using older computers to enjoy their games need to think about updating now if they don’t want to lose access to their games.
It should be noted that the program will continue to operate without problem from January 1st. The end of Steam support only means that the program will no longer receive updates if we use one of these three operating systems; and even if it does not seem to be the case, it can have very serious consequences, and even we could lose access to our games. Although on January 1st we probably won’t notice any difference, over time we may notice that some parts of the program no longer work.
On its support page, Steam specifies that The installed program and games should continue to work “for a while” without the need to receive updates; But as Steam receives updates and new features, it’s very possible that versions that haven’t been updated will start to crash and even games stop working even though we haven’t changed anything . Steam will not support users with these outdated systems, so once it starts crashing there will be no solution.
Therefore, the only option we have to continue using Steam is update Windows 10 to minimum; If we cannot do this on the computer we are using (for reasons of compatibility or power, for example), the only alternative is to buy a more modern computer with Windows 10 or Windows 11 preinstalled.
Valve defended itself by assuring that the end of support for Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 was forced by the aforementioned end of support for Chrome; Steam integrates a version of the Chrome browser for certain functions such as access to the store. Additionally, it anticipates that future versions of Steam will use Windows features and updates that are only present in Windows 10 and later. According to Steam’s own statistics, approximately 1% of Steam players will be affected for this change; That doesn’t sound like much, but given that the platform has over 130 million monthly active users, this change could potentially affect over a million devices.
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