The fateful day has come: If you’re still using Windows 7, 8, or 8.1, you may soon need to upgrade to Windows 10 or 11, as Valve’s wildly popular digital storefront Steam no longer officially supports these older operating systems.
Valve initially announced that it would end support for older versions of Windows a post on the support page last March. The message explained that starting January 1, 2024, Steam users on Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 will no longer receive new client updates “of any kind,” including security fixes. For this reason, Valve warns users of these operating systems to upgrade “sooner than later” to avoid malware and other malicious attacks.
In the post, Valve also stated that Steam Support will no longer provide technical support for issues related to these older versions of Windows. Valve also cannot guarantee that Steam will remain usable on these older operating systems in the future.
To be clear, Valve isn’t flipping a switch and shutting down Steam on Windows 7. It’s just saying that things might break soon and when that happens, they won’t be fixed.
“We expect that the Steam client and games on these older operating systems will continue to run without updates for some time after January 1, 2024,” Valve wrote. “But we cannot guarantee continued functionality after this date.”
Why Steam is ending support for Windows 7
According to Valve, a major reason for dropping support for Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 is because Google Chrome no longer supports these older operating systems. This is a problem for Valve because Steam relies on an embedded version of the browser. The company behind it Half-life And portal also mentioned that future versions of the Steam client will “require” Windows features and security updates only found in Windows 10 and 11.
Valve ended its post by urging gamers to upgrade to Windows 10 or 11 soon.
“Computers that run these [older] “Operating systems, when connected to the Internet, are vulnerable to new malware and other exploits that are not patched,” Valve warned. “This malware can cause your PC, Steam, and games to malfunction or crash. This malware can also be used to steal login credentials for your Steam account or other services.”
While some people may now be forced to upgrade or even buy a new PC to continue playing on Steam, it seems sensible for Valve to move forward and leave behind Windows 7, which was released back in 2009. That’s a damn good thing It’s impressive that Valve has supported this operating system for almost 15 years.
However, if you’re upgrading to Windows 10, you should be getting ready to upgrade again soon, and so should Microsoft End of security support for this operating system in October 2025. As someone who desperately clings to Windows 10, I’m counting the days.
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