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- cross-posted to:
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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.
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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 nowI bet, we don’t find a single Windows 8 user who uses Steam on that system. Similar applies to Win7.
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.
Why not switch to Linux? There is several ones which works well with steam
Because maybe they want to play games without having to check if it runs on linux?
That’s becoming way less of an issue nowadays
Thanks to the Steam Deck and proton development, these days that’s pretty much limited to a few incompatible multiplayer anticheat systems. Gone are the days where a developer actually had to make a Linux build.
That’s actually just what I did. New PC runs Manjaro Linux. So far all the games I’ve thrown at it work just fine.
Maybe I should have done that with the old PC, but I’m lazy and Windows 7 was working well enough.
I used to be a Win8 user who had Steam
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.
Win 8 was listed just under 1%
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.
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.
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.
👌👍 whenever you say
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! (͡•_ ͡• )Never said it was your fault, I explicitly said it was Google’s doing but ok be mad if you want to
I know you never said it was my fault. I was being sarcastic! What you said was that, it wasn’t Valve’s choice, but this is wrong. It is their fault. It’s was their decision to use an external software which is out of their control. It was their decision, so everything good/bad with this decision it will always be their fault.
What I’m trying to tell you, is that people are quick to give credits to Valve, but when they do shit (and I’ve been using their services for so long, that I’ve seen plenty of it), it’s rarely their fault.
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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.
Also in Steams’s case the pre-Windows 10 Steam user base is also tiny, and may not be considered commercially viable to support regardless.
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.
Well, it’s a hybrid application but the vast majority of the UI is rendered in a browser. In my opinion, this is often the lazy way out when it shouldn’t be. Native applications should be much faster than web applications…
And if memory serves me right, Microsoft is dropping W7, 8, and 8.1 support this year too. I love to shit on Google, but I also love to shit on Microsoft.
Especially since W10 EOL is on the horizon.
A thing I didn’t consider: many steam games still support Windows 7 and 8, so… What about them?
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January 10th 2023 was the last update for the extended security update program.
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Linux
The “let them eat cake” cry for social media.
Yes, except If cake were free and accessible to anyone regardless of silverware or plates.
I hate to break it to you, but Linux isn’t as accessible as many people make it out to be. Sure, the base OS can probably run on more computers, but if you want to talk parity with what somebody needs, there’s a darn good chance you’ll run into issues.
And at that point, you need to expect the person to learn a new operating system, and one where user experience tends to be the last thing developers think about…
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It uses Chromium on Linux too. It uses DRM on Linux too.
The real answer is GoG.
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.
It’s good for new games too! With Lutris I can even install Windows games with Proton on Linux, or choose my own Wine setup. I think Heroic Game Launcher does the same.
Best of all, no internet connection is required once a game is downloaded, unless the game specifically demands it. You can save your installers locally and keep them forever, never needing to phone home. If push comes to shove, install a VM of an old OS, and it’ll run just the same. Connecting old OSes to the internet is potentially a security risk. And, as we see here, Steam ain’t gonna work on old OSes anyway. You’re going to need to pirate the games you already bought if you want to play them again in 20 years.
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.
Okay, you just blew my mind. How does one download installers for DRM-free games on Steam? How do you even tell which games are DRM-free? I was not able to find answers with some quick searching, just community-maintained lists of games that are ostensibly DRM-free in one way or another. But how do I verify that? How do I archive installers?
You can usually just copy the game files
Fuck GoG
Why does it matter if Steam uses Chromium on Linux. It’s not like Gecko dropped embed support or anything
The alternative to Chromium-based apps is not Gecko-based apps; it is native apps, that do not require an entire bloated web engine to run.
This is especially obnoxious with Steam since it wants to run in the background 24/7.
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.
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)ᕗPlenty 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.
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.
Thanks! I will try.
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I’m sorry I hurt your feelings.
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.
It’s a store and content downloader. Buy games that don’t implement steamworks and you can copy the install folder to keep playing on windows 7 just fine without logging in.
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.
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.
It’s a Chromium issue, not a Windows issue.
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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
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.
I hope somebody sues them for stealing their purchased games.
This isn’t Steam’s fault. The OS is dead because Microsoft killed it (as part of their ongoing planned-obsolescence operating system program). There is no conceivable way Steam can maintain security for anyone’s account on an OS that hasn’t received security updates for three years.
Nothing unusual about cutting the cord at some point when major updates introduce big enough differences that it becomes a pain to make sure things stay compatible. Same thing happen with any OS.
I swear some people around here must be mad that Microsoft doesn’t release Windows 98 updates anymore…
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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.
But, how about my funny and stupid reviews on the store page, and my useless badges and cards? /s
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.
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.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
My setup (it has been destroyed by Gabe)
*Google
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because valvle only removed support due to chromium removing it as well. Steam uses chromium in a few places so they likely figured ending support would be easier than creating a win 7 client with limited features.
Sorry, I realized (by, you know, actually reading the article) and deleted my comment within like 40 seconds, but may not have deleted everywhere (or you had already started replying).
Thanks.
nah I’m just an instance admin, I also see deleted comments. Decided to reply anyway to clear it up.
