Popular PC gaming storefront and platform Steam will stop working on (objectively) the best version of Windows on 1 January 2024. It’ll also stop working on Windows 8 and Windows 8.1. The news isn’t that surprising — Windows 7 launched in 2009 and Microsoft killed support for the operating system in 2020. Windows 8 and its successor were always on borrowed time.
Time for a Steam clean
The reason? Valve is actually very specifically laying the blame on Google’s Chrome. Specifically, “The newest features in Steam rely on an embedded version of Google Chrome, which no longer functions on older versions of Windows. In addition, future versions of Steam will require Windows features and security updates only present in Windows 10 and above.”
There are no real workarounds planned for the platform either. Gamers will have to upgrade to a more modern Microsoft operating system in order to continue using their accounts. It doesn’t seem that users can continue to play using the last-updated version of the platform, either. “In order to continue running… any games or other products purchased… users will need to update to a more recent version of Windows.”
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If you’re still hanging onto your Windows 7 or Windows 8[.1] install for dear life, it’s time to let it go. Some 10% of Windows 7 users are still clinging to that version. Windows 8 and 8.1 account for around 3% of the entire install base. Those numbers sound tiny but that’s still around 192 million users (out of 1.6 billion Windows users in total). At least some of that number are gamers on Valve’s platform. It’s time to let it go, folks.