Valve Discontinuing Steam Support on Windows 7/8/8.1 as of 2024

[SOAREVERSOR]

Yes, but there's a problem. Some games sold on steam require older OSes to run correctly. Warhammer 40k Dawn of War (1) and all it's addons, Sacrifice, Fallout 3, Elder Scrolls Morrowind, Fallout New Vegas, Carmageddon Max Pack, Company of Heroes, Darkstar One, Flatout, Max Payne 1 and 2, Return to castle wolfenstein (1), Unreal Gold - these are just some of the games in my library witch do not run correctly on windows 10. Most will crash to desktop randomly during gameplay, while others will not even start, indifferent of which compatibility settings you apply. Before 2019 I used to run these games on a Retro-PC (QX6800, 4GB of DDR2, GTX 285) under windows XP and everything was good. Then Valve decided to pull support for XP out of pure lazyness - but they still sell most of these games, and lots of us have the others in our library, UNABLE TO PLAY THEM.

Now Valve needs to either REFUND US for all these games or provide a separate LEGACY BUILD of steam so we can play these games we paid for. Right now I'm either running these games on the same PC using a hacked version of steam on XP (God knows how long that's going to keep working) or under windows 7 on the same PC. If they pull win7 support, I want a refund or a legacy client.

Per the TOS you are not entitled to a refund. Welcome to the PC!

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Yeah there's always linux hell steam will probably give up and make their own linux distro lol

 

[neatfeatguy]

Yes, but there's a problem. Some games sold on steam require older OSes to run correctly. Warhammer 40k Dawn of War (1) and all it's addons, Sacrifice, Fallout 3, Elder Scrolls Morrowind, Fallout New Vegas, Carmageddon Max Pack, Company of Heroes, Darkstar One, Flatout, Max Payne 1 and 2, Return to castle wolfenstein (1), Unreal Gold - these are just some of the games in my library witch do not run correctly on windows 10. Most will crash to desktop randomly during gameplay, while others will not even start, indifferent of which compatibility settings you apply. Before 2019 I used to run these games on a Retro-PC (QX6800, 4GB of DDR2, GTX 285) under windows XP and everything was good. Then Valve decided to pull support for XP out of pure lazyness - but they still sell most of these games, and lots of us have the others in our library, UNABLE TO PLAY THEM.

Now Valve needs to either REFUND US for all these games or provide a separate LEGACY BUILD of steam so we can play these games we paid for. Right now I'm either running these games on the same PC using a hacked version of steam on XP (God knows how long that's going to keep working) or under windows 7 on the same PC. If they pull win7 support, I want a refund or a legacy client.

As I said a few posts up, migrate away from Steam. Do yourself a favor and move away from Steam.

GoG has many of those games on their platform from your list, such as:
Sacrifice
Fallout 3
Fallout New Vegas
Elder Scrolls Morrowind
Darkstar One
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Flatout
Dawn of War (marked as coming soon on GoG)

Now you don't have to worry about these games requiring a digital platform, such as Steam, being required to run on the OS you're using. Steam is just a type of DRM that will eventually keep you from being able to play the games you've paid for. Either through the lack of OS support or some day they just shutter and you're SOL.

You won't get any kind of refund from Steam. Be mad at them all you want, but it really is no one's fault except for those that have kept their faith in them and continued to use and support them. I stepped away from buying on Steam over 4 years ago and I don't regret it, I wish I did it sooner, but it is what it is. Sure, I might miss out on a few games that never come to GoG that I find interesting and would like to play, but I've got so many other games to play it's not the end of the world.

 

[RadeonProVega]

I still think Windows 7 has the best interface and with less hassle than Windows 10. But once you get windows 10 up and running, removed all the nonsense and disable most of the anti-virus bloatware nonsense, Windows 10 is superior. Good memories with Windows 7!

 

[Courier 6]

Damn, I need to find a way to get a key, it´s not been easy lately...

 

[ThrashZone]

Damn, I need to find a way to get a key, it´s not been easy lately...

Hi,
Key for what
Win-10 upgrades are free still.

 

[R-T-B]

Hi,
Yeah there's always linux hell steam will probably give up and make their own linux distro lol

They have for years buddy.

 

[trsttte]

They have for years buddy.

Loads of people waiting for the current custom Arch build that runs on the steam deck to have a general release - there's a modified version version with some hw restrictions based of the recovery image already

 

[Paganstomp]

no problemo bruhs... I'm Steam free.

 

[Easo]

Honestly speaking, good. As long as it is connected to internet it's a risk (incoming people screaming at me).
Regardless Steam statistics are enough, so... Sorry 2% (even less by the time deadline arrives).

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Enjoy the PC Stone Age.


Old people dont like to do it because change. "OMG microsoft spyware!" "i dont like windows 11's start menu"

All easily changeable. But no one bothers to do anything but bitch and moan.

It's easily changeable, much like swapping an engine from a new truck into an old truck is a basic weekend project. Except the engine doesnt magically reset into the new truck every time something updates.

Believe it or not, most people dont want to constantly tinker with the OS (see also: why linux never took off). Thus 10 and 11 are horrendous operating systems, glorified spy platforms that take monstrous resources just to run the same thing that 7 could do on 2GB of RAM and without offending my eyes.

As I said a few posts up, migrate away from Steam. Do yourself a favor and move away from Steam.

GoG has many of those games on their platform from your list, such as:
Sacrifice
Fallout 3
Fallout New Vegas
Elder Scrolls Morrowind
Darkstar One
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Flatout
Dawn of War (marked as coming soon on GoG)

Now you don't have to worry about these games requiring a digital platform, such as Steam, being required to run on the OS you're using. Steam is just a type of DRM that will eventually keep you from being able to play the games you've paid for. Either through the lack of OS support or some day they just shutter and you're SOL.

You won't get any kind of refund from Steam. Be mad at them all you want, but it really is no one's fault except for those that have kept their faith in them and continued to use and support them. I stepped away from buying on Steam over 4 years ago and I don't regret it, I wish I did it sooner, but it is what it is. Sure, I might miss out on a few games that never come to GoG that I find interesting and would like to play, but I've got so many other games to play it's not the end of the world.

Thus why I'll happily pay $60 for a GoG release but anything on steam I only pay $15 or less on sale. You're not buying, you're renting, and while valve is better then most it is still DRM.

 

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

It's easily changeable, much like swapping an engine from a new truck into an old truck is a basic weekend project. Except the engine doesnt magically reset into the new truck every time something updates.

Believe it or not, most people dont want to constantly tinker with the OS (see also: why linux never took off). Thus 10 and 11 are horrendous operating systems, glorified spy platforms that take monstrous resources just to run the same thing that 7 could do on 2GB of RAM and without offending my eyes.


Thus why I'll happily pay $60 for a GoG release but anything on steam I only pay $15 or less on sale. You're not buying, you're renting, and while valve is better then most it is still DRM.

Tiny 11? There are things that you can do to trim down the windows OS just like youve always been able to do. back in the day we had nlite and vlite i think it was called. One was for XP the other Vista. I never bothered with trying to trim 7 so im not sure what that one is called. Trim out the telemetry. Hell there's apps out there to disable them all in one go. It's not hard. People just make it hard for themselves and then cry when the OS doesnt get supported by anything anymore like they didnt know it was coming eventually.

But hey, at least you dont have DRM in your games and you have to use an entire hard drive to house the ISO files. Thats nice i guess.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Yes, but there's a problem. Some games sold on steam require older OSes to run correctly. Warhammer 40k Dawn of War (1) and all it's addons, Sacrifice, Fallout 3, Elder Scrolls Morrowind, Fallout New Vegas, Carmageddon Max Pack, Company of Heroes, Darkstar One, Flatout, Max Payne 1 and 2, Return to castle wolfenstein (1), Unreal Gold - these are just some of the games in my library witch do not run correctly on windows 10. Most will crash to desktop randomly during gameplay, while others will not even start, indifferent of which compatibility settings you apply. Before 2019 I used to run these games on a Retro-PC (QX6800, 4GB of DDR2, GTX 285) under windows XP and everything was good. Then Valve decided to pull support for XP out of pure lazyness - but they still sell most of these games, and lots of us have the others in our library, UNABLE TO PLAY THEM.

Now Valve needs to either REFUND US for all these games or provide a separate LEGACY BUILD of steam so we can play these games we paid for. Right now I'm either running these games on the same PC using a hacked version of steam on XP (God knows how long that's going to keep working) or under windows 7 on the same PC. If they pull win7 support, I want a refund or a legacy client.

Out of those you mentioned that I own and played: Unreal Gold (as well as UT99), Morrowind, Fallout 3 and New Vegas both work flawlessly under Windows 11. The same goes for Oblivion.

Also the reason Valve pulled support for XP, Vista and now 7 is the same - it's not "pure laziness", it's that the world moves on and they use CEF to build the client as a web application. CEF stops working, Steam and everything else stops working, fullstop.

Spotify already discontinued Windows 7 as well. When I open it on my 2008 R2 machine it says this version of Windows is no longer supported. Still works, but who knows for how long.

As far as I'm aware Opera does not have an application embed framework. Please correct me if I'm wrong, I could not find anything on google other than something from stack overflow stating that they do not have that.

Firefox is ending windows 7 / 8.1 support as well.

Any way you look at it, even if Valve did go through all the effort of switching which browser they are using, they'd at best earn themselves a few months extra time.

Opera is just another Chromium fork nowadays. Their proprietary Presto engine died a decade ago.

Hi,
Yeah there's always linux hell steam will probably give up and make their own linux distro lol

I am probably missing out on your sarcasm, but SteamOS came out 10 years ago...

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Yeah I don't follow linux or steam very much
I only have one free game on steam I haven't played in years batman arkham knight but bat mobile is pretty fun but doubt it's worth looking into steamos to play it on.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Tiny 11? There are things that you can do to trim down the windows OS just like youve always been able to do. back in the day we had nlite and vlite i think it was called. One was for XP the other Vista. I never bothered with trying to trim 7 so im not sure what that one is called. Trim out the telemetry. Hell there's apps out there to disable them all in one go. It's not hard. People just make it hard for themselves and then cry when the OS doesnt get supported by anything anymore like they didnt know it was coming eventually.

Just because you find something easy does not mean it is easy for everyone. Brake jobs are easy as hell yet most people dont do them. Same for reinstalling operating systems, upgrading firmware, ece.

None of this, of course, excuses the bloated spyware infested nature of windows 10 and 11. You should NEED to debloat these systems in the first place. Just because you can run third party programs to plug some of the spy holes does not make it OK for those spy holes to exist.

But hey, at least you dont have DRM in your games and you have to use an entire hard drive to house the ISO files. Thats nice i guess.

Oh no, I gotta use a $100 drive to permanently hold all of the software I purchased, the HORROR! Guess I better move all my software to subscription based DRM so daddy MS can watch my every move! /s.

Yes, its actually very nice to have all the software I have purchased on hand, DRM free, so I can use it whenever and wherever I want. I dont know why you think owning the software you want is bad, but if tying your software to forced cloud accounts makes you happy, then go right on ahead. Some people are into voyeurism, I guess.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Some people are into voyeurism, I guess.

But that is why you use GNU/Linux if you disagree with Micro$oft's ways of doing things. If I were you though, I would use a custom GNU/Linux kernel using as little modules as possible - and of course, not a single nonfree one - a certified privacy-friendly proxy and a trustable VPN, geolocation fakers, anti-track apps and make sure that you have a dynamic IP, too. Don't forget to disable nonfree Javascript and always use a fixed browser resolution, the window size can indeed be used to track you. In any case, do not forget to pay exclusively in cash, other methods are trackable. Good luck!

*this post is intended to be nerd humor

 

[R-T-B]

But that is why you use GNU/Linux if you disagree with Micro$oft's ways of doing things. If I were you though, I would use a custom GNU/Linux kernel using as little modules as possible - and of course, not a single nonfree one - a certified privacy-friendly proxy and a trustable VPN, geolocation fakers, anti-track apps and make sure that you have a dynamic IP, too. Don't forget to disable nonfree Javascript and always use a fixed browser resolution, the window size can indeed be used to track you. In any case, do not forget to pay exclusively in cash, other methods are trackable. Good luck!

View attachment 289715

*this post is intended to be nerd humor

Nice try Stallman.

 

[Sora]

View attachment 289584


Isn't that what compatibility layers are for? Windows' own compatibility mode, Wine/Proton, etc..

oh, you sweet summer child, i wish the Layers handled all cases, and even where it can you need to install a toolkit that isn't even qualified for windows 10 or 11 to employ fixes.

Things like Falcon 4.0 just won't run from its base steam install, without a third party client replacement,
There are some Win9x titles that run in turbo on processors exposing RDTSC.

Max Payne 1 and 2

To be fair, these have a fix on Vogons/PCGW.

I don't see this as a real issue, Windows 7 extended kernel should be able to run Chrome 110+ by the time Steam moves over to using a CEF variant based on it.

 

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

Just because you find something easy does not mean it is easy for everyone. Brake jobs are easy as hell yet most people dont do them. Same for reinstalling operating systems, upgrading firmware, ece.

None of this, of course, excuses the bloated spyware infested nature of windows 10 and 11. You should NEED to debloat these systems in the first place. Just because you can run third party programs to plug some of the spy holes does not make it OK for those spy holes to exist.

Oh no, I gotta use a $100 drive to permanently hold all of the software I purchased, the HORROR! Guess I better move all my software to subscription based DRM so daddy MS can watch my every move! /s.

Yes, its actually very nice to have all the software I have purchased on hand, DRM free, so I can use it whenever and wherever I want. I dont know why you think owning the software you want is bad, but if tying your software to forced cloud accounts makes you happy, then go right on ahead. Some people are into voyeurism, I guess.

I never said it was easy. But if youre an enthusiast when it comes to computers (and im pretty sure 99% of us here are) you can use your brain to figure out how to slim down an OS install to cut out the crap. Brake jobs on cars might be easy, but if youre not into cars like someone is into computers, then this point is really moot.

Of course it doesnt excuse it. Unforunately, it is the world we live in now. And choosing to stay on an old, unsupported operating system such as Windows 7 and 8, leaves you susceptible to security vulnerabilities that will no longer be patched. Im going to assume you meant that we shouldn't need to debloat these systems in the first placae, but again, debloating the OS was around since before Windows 7. So whats the excuse there? "Spy holes" didnt exist then like they do now.

Are any of those ISO's that you have multiplayer? Do they still have to connect to the game servers in order to play? Guess what? Those servers can be taken down and the game becomes worthless anyway. Which is basically the reason why Steam is no longer supporting Windows 7 and Windows 8 because something on the backend is Chrome based and Chrome is no longer supporting Windows 7 and 8. So theres that. Also, if youre worried about "daddy MS" watching your every move, I got news for you; youre on cameras all over the place. Your ISP and cell phone company would also like a word. So if youre worried about privacy, dont worry, you dont have any.

You dont even notice steam DRM and you make it sound as though youre in some exclusive club just because you dont buy shit on steam. BTW, i can log into my steam account on any computer in the world and still have my games. We share that experience. Only difference is i dont have to worry about dropping my hard drive or it failing on me and I lose all the ISO's.

So would i prefer to have Steam to manage my game library? Absolutely. Does it have its share of cons? Sure. Nothing is perfect. Do I like the fact that i can save my saved game data in the cloud so i can pick up where i left off 10 years later when Im on a completely new computer and that data isnt on my computer? Hell yeah!

Youre just stuck in the past. But to each their own.

 

[Dr. Dro]

oh, you sweet summer child, i wish the Layers handled all cases, and even where it can you need to install a toolkit that isn't even qualified for windows 10 or 11 to employ fixes.

Things like Falcon 4.0 just won't run from its base steam install, without a third party client replacement,
There are some Win9x titles that run in turbo on processors exposing RDTSC.






To be fair, these have a fix on Vogons/PCGW.

I don't see this as a real issue, Windows 7 extended kernel should be able to run Chrome 110+ by the time Steam moves over to using a CEF variant based on it.

I mean it's not like we're completely out of options, either. There's 86Box to run very old (486/Pentium) era PC software with a very high degree of accuracy:

Release 86Box 3.11 · 86Box/86Box

See the release announcement for more information! What's Changed NVR: Don't fatal on failure to read NVR properly by @Cacodemon345 in #2574 qt: fix busy looping with evdev mouse by @elyosh in #25...

github.com

VMware now supports advanced DirectX 11 graphics emulation: VMware Workstation evaluation link, amongst other things. Running Windows XP and chiefly 7 natively is no longer necessary.

 

[kanecvr]

Out of those you mentioned that I own and played: Unreal Gold (as well as UT99), Morrowind, Fallout 3 and New Vegas both work flawlessly under Windows 11. The same goes for Oblivion.

Older Bethesda games crash to desktop every 30-50 minutes - I tried playing New Vegas just a few months ago, both on my desktop that runs win10 and my laptop witch came with windows 11. The result was the same. Fallout 3 crashes at random intervals. Unreal Gold uses and older version of OpenAL witch doesn't run correctly on newer OSes. Haven't tried playing it recently, maybe they changed something in the meantime. Oblivion works fine on win10

There are unofficial patches that improve stability but they're still not 100%. Stop defending laziness. A legacy client would be pretty simple to pull off and manage by a very small team of people.

As I said a few posts up, migrate away from Steam. Do yourself a favor and move away from Steam.

GoG has many of those games on their platform from your list, such as:
Sacrifice
Fallout 3
Fallout New Vegas
Elder Scrolls Morrowind
Darkstar One
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Flatout
Dawn of War (marked as coming soon on GoG)

Now you don't have to worry about these games requiring a digital platform, such as Steam, being required to run on the OS you're using. Steam is just a type of DRM that will eventually keep you from being able to play the games you've paid for. Either through the lack of OS support or some day they just shutter and you're SOL.

You won't get any kind of refund from Steam. Be mad at them all you want, but it really is no one's fault except for those that have kept their faith in them and continued to use and support them. I stepped away from buying on Steam over 4 years ago and I don't regret it, I wish I did it sooner, but it is what it is. Sure, I might miss out on a few games that never come to GoG that I find interesting and would like to play, but I've got so many other games to play it's not the end of the world.

GoG doesn't support XP either, but at least they provide off-line installer for all their games. I've started moving away from steam as soon as they dropped XP support.

I don't advertise using XP or 7 on modern machines, for daily use in any way. Like I said, I have Retro PCs for my old games covering all eras of gaming - the point is I'd like to get old games I own available on these retro machines as well.

 

[R-T-B]

Stop defending laziness.

As a developer, no, stop acting like maintaining a complete second client version is something easy, and the only reason they won't is "laziness." That is not at all the case.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Older Bethesda games crash to desktop every 30-50 minutes - I tried playing New Vegas just a few months ago, both on my desktop that runs win10 and my laptop witch came with windows 11. The result was the same. Fallout 3 crashes at random intervals. Unreal Gold uses and older version of OpenAL witch doesn't run correctly on newer OSes. Haven't tried playing it recently, maybe they changed something in the meantime. Oblivion works fine on win10

There are unofficial patches that improve stability but they're still not 100%. Stop defending laziness. A legacy client would be pretty simple to pull off and manage by a very small team of people.


GoG doesn't support XP either, but at least they provide off-line installer for all their games. I've started moving away from steam as soon as they dropped XP support.

I don't advertise using XP or 7 on modern machines, for daily use in any way. Like I said, I have Retro PCs for my old games covering all eras of gaming - the point is I'd like to get old games I own available on these retro machines as well.

If you go through the pains of upkeeping retrogaming machines, I guess it's logical to opt for GOG's offline installers or physical media instead. Windows has great backwards compatibility. Things will more or less always work, and Linux is moving in to fill those blanks fast. It's not that I'm defending laziness, I just recognize it's a fringe minority of people who refuse to upgrade no matter what, and in the interests of sanity, it's best to leave these people to their own devices.

BTW, New Vegas crashes because of spaghetti code, not because of newer versions of Windows, there are many community mods, bugfixes and even an anti-crash DLL that is designed to work with NVSE - all of these are must haves to play New Vegas on PC regardless. It's a very, very poor port, Obsidian didn't know how to use Bethesda's engine and had limited time and budget to figure it out.

Unmodded Fallout 3 (which you shouldn't really bother IMO - install TTW) has a two-line fix in its settings ini to disable dual-core CPU support (which is what breaks it)

 

[Slizzo]

I've been playing through Fallout3 for a while on my Windows 11 machines, no CTDs to speak of. And I have quite a few mods installed. Steam version, BTW.

 

[Sora]

Older Bethesda games crash to desktop every 30-50 minutes

You can fix this on morrowind by using an sse optimized exe, the base executable is just really sensitive to fpu math deviation and patching out the sensitive regions with sse optimized code does the trick.

As a developer, no, stop acting like maintaining a complete second client version is something easy, and the only reason they won't is "laziness." That is not at all the case.

Theres no reason to not retain support for older OS's which can be achieved by simply not forcing the use of a performance reducing sandbox on the cef client.