Steam will stop supporting Windows 7 and 8 in 2024.

[Chanel Oberlin]

People need to stop using dead operating systems.

Dead operating systems won't spy on you.

 

[Tacgnol]

They've also given people over 8 months to make alternative arrangements. It's foolish to expect software vendors to keep supporting an OS that has been out of support for three years now.

We had the same shit at work back in 2011 when we were enforcing Win 7 across the fleet and we had staff stubbornly holding onto their XP laptops and refusing to bring them in for upgrades.

 

[Tyrr]

What the fuck.
YOU bought the product with YOUR money. You should be able to enjoy said product however you want. It's like the provider putting conditions on how exactly you want to enjoy and make use of the product you just bought from him.
Valve might even get lawsuits thrown their way.

That's my point. Every game they sell has "system requirements". If they sold a games with the Windows 7/8 requirement, they have to provide a way to still fulfill that guarantee after 2024, or offer a refund.
Maybe a "Steam classic" client, without a shop or any other online elements (workshop, forum, ...), with just your library, that still runs on W7/8.

 

[Joggerino]

As it turns out, the licensing concept is crap. And pirates are the ones who actually preserve games for future generations, removing DRM and just giving you the software as it is.

 

[NecroLord]

As it turns out, the licensing concept is crap. And pirates are the ones who actually preserve games for future generations, removing DRM and just giving you the software as it is.

It does depend on the kind of pirate though.

 

[thesheeep]

People need to stop using dead operating systems.

Dead operating systems won't spy on you.

Neither do other operating systems that aren't dead and better than Windows in many regards

Seriously, though, you can disable that even in Win10 and 11 with some external tools if I'm not mistaken.

That's my point. Every game they sell has "system requirements". If they sold a games with the Windows 7/8 requirement, they have to provide a way to still fulfill that guarantee after 2024, or offer a refund.

No, they don't.
That's not how software licensing works and everyone knows that unless they live under a rock, licensing software via Steam is not like buying a mechanical wrist watch.
Imagine if some karens were still running around "I BOUGHT THIS PRODUCT FOR WINDOWS 98, SO IT MUST SUPPORT WINDOWS 98 FOR ALL ETERNITY".
It's ridiculous to think that way - everything would have to carry legacy code around until the end of time. There would be no updates to software, no new operating systems, nothing anymore if things worked like that.
You cannot maintain support for dead operating systems in software development.

In the very best of circumstances with the friendliest of developers, they might offer downloads for "the last version supporting Win7".

Concerning refunds, it would be on the publisher/developer to offer a refund for that, not Valve. Valve could at best make that process easier.
Good luck proving that you couldn't easily upgrade to an officially supported OS, though...
"I have chosen to live in the past for the rest of my life and YOU have to adhere to that" is not exactly a strong argument.
And yes, the user is expected to keep their stuff updated, that's not anyone else's task and that still holds true for newer versions of an operating system.

Of course, if someone STILL has a Win7 requirement on their store page nowadays, then I'd say you are right and they should offer refunds for purchases done AFTER Valve dropped support and their requirement can no longer be logically fulfilled. Maybe that's what you meant.
I'm not certain what is the legalese for when Valve's dropping of Win 7 conflicts with a game having that as a system requirement.
My guess: These requirements are not officially "binding", just meant as guidelines.

 

[Konjad]

https://archive.org/details/SteamWindowsXPCompatibilityBuild

Steam
Windows XP Compatibility Build
------------------------------

This is a stripped down version of the last compatible version of Steam for Windows XP released by Valve (dated 26 November 2018). I use this personally to play GoldSrc games online with the absolute minimum resources needed. I uploaded it as perhaps it is useful to someone else (I cannot provide any support, it 'works for me' on my 32-bit Windows XP system, please make sure you read below if you have a problem as it might give you the answer.

Stuff to know:
--------------

* The only things I have tested to work are the installation and launch of GoldSrc games (e.g. Half-Life, Counter-Strike). That doesn't mean other games won't install/play, I have only tested GoldSrc games as that was the purpose of me creating this, to play old games online on Windows XP with minimum resources.

* The '-no-browser' startup parameter is used when starting Steam to disable any browser features (e.g. friends, steamwebhelper), here is the official information regarding the parameter:

"Steam's description for this parameter says it "unconditionally disables CEF". CEF is Chromium Embedded Framework, which Steam uses for its built-in web browser components (including the in-game overlay browser), and also for WebViews used by the new Panorama-based friends/chat UI. Using this option will—among other things—disable the new friends and chat UI."

* If you get the 'content servers unreachable' error message when trying to install a game (or a game won't update itself), you need to perform the steps in the content_servers_unreachable.txt file located in the Steam directory. Also, if you clear the Steam Download Cache from Steam Settings you will have to do this again.

* Browsing for servers using the game browser OUTSIDE of GoldSrc games does not work (in-game works fine). This was to prevent an exploit in the serverbrowser library described at the HackerOne website and fixed by Valve, but only fixed in builds that are not Windows XP compatible. I only know that GoldSrc games do not use this library when browsing for servers in-game (they use their own safe/updated version from the game install files), other games such as Source (CS:GO, Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2, etc) most likely do use the vulnerable serverbrowser library.

* Steam client updates are disabled by use of a steam.cfg file. Game updates work fine.

* Only English language is supported.

* It is best to use Steam in 'small mode', otherwise content used to navigate Steam might be missing (such as buttons). Note that I removed a lot of files such as icons when stripping down to save space, icons in the Settings pages will be missing which is normal. All options work fine regardless.

I imagine someone will do something similar for W7, or you could just use this one

 

[Tyrr]

Imagine if some karens were still running around "I BOUGHT THIS PRODUCT FOR WINDOWS 98, SO IT MUST SUPPORT WINDOWS XP FOR ALL ETERNITY".
It's ridiculous to think that way - everything would have to carry legacy code around until the end of time. There would be no updates to software, no new operating systems, nothing anymore if things worked like that.
You cannot maintain support for dead operating systems in software development.

They sell a new version of software for the new OS, they don't remove the ability to run the old software you bought (like Windows Office, you can still run an old version on older Windows OS).

Concerning refunds, it would be on the publisher/developer to offer a refund for that, not Valve. Valve could at best make that process easier.

No, because the old games still run just fine on Windows 7/8. It's Valve's DRM that let people no longer run the Software they bought.
Valve could just sell DRM free like GOG, it's their responsibility to make the product available in the way they promised at the time they sold the product.

 

[JarlFrank]

I will not switch to Windows 10.

Guess I'll just have to stop playing games and talking to my lads on Steam chat (sorry pals).

 

[Konjad]

I will not switch to Windows 10.

Guess I'll just have to stop playing games and talking to my lads on Steam chat (sorry pals).

why not have a linux partition for games?

 

[JarlFrank]

I can do that, yes.

 

[GrafvonMoltke]

 

[Joggerino]

I will not switch to Windows 10.

Guess I'll just have to stop playing games and talking to my lads on Steam chat (sorry pals).

I switched to win 10 LTSC recently and it works perfectly well, no issues. Hardly notice any difference between this and win 7.

 

[janior]

telemetry

nigga doesn't know this shit is in widnows since vista

 

[JarlFrank]

I will not switch to Windows 10.

Guess I'll just have to stop playing games and talking to my lads on Steam chat (sorry pals).

I switched to win 10 LTSC recently and it works perfectly well, no issues. Hardly notice any difference between this and win 7.

I checked for LTSC but that's a pretty expensive license.

 

[Raghar]

telemetry

nigga doesn't know this shit is in widnows since vista

There is telemetry, and there is telemetry that wastes your SSD and gaming framerates by scanning all 170000 files on your PC.

 

[janior]

telemetry

nigga doesn't know this shit is in widnows since vista

There is telemetry, and there is telemetry that wastes your SSD and gaming framerates by scanning all 170000 files on your PC.

You can disable disk scanning quite easily though.

 

[Joggerino]

I will not switch to Windows 10.

Guess I'll just have to stop playing games and talking to my lads on Steam chat (sorry pals).

I switched to win 10 LTSC recently and it works perfectly well, no issues. Hardly notice any difference between this and win 7.

I checked for LTSC but that's a pretty expensive license.

You're not even supposed to be able to get one for private use. I of course just downloaded the ISO from a trusted pirate site (together with an activator).

 

[catfood]

I will not switch to Windows 10.

Guess I'll just have to stop playing games and talking to my lads on Steam chat (sorry pals).

Embrace the penguin.

 

[mastroego]

They've also given people over 8 months to make alternative arrangements. It's foolish to expect software vendors to keep supporting an OS that has been out of support for three years now.

We had the same shit at work back in 2011 when we were enforcing Win 7 across the fleet and we had staff stubbornly holding onto their XP laptops and refusing to bring them in for upgrades.

The problem is that we're being forced to "upgrade" when we have systems that already can do the things that we need to do, and we already know their quirks and everything.
I prefer to keep things as they are as a general rule when they work

 

[pqt]

This lazy ass company doesn't deserve my money. At this point I will just download free version because that will work forever and won't force me upgrade my Windows.

 

[just]

download xubuntu, copy to usb, reset, click install
no bloat, no ads in start menu lol, no telemetry
it just works
especially gaming thanks to valve autists and proton

 

[Gargaune]

Keep buying deeper and deeper into our glorious "online services" economy, citizen, it's for your own good! You'll own nothing and nobody'll give a shit whether you're happy or not, but oooh, look at those cloud saves and shiny, shiny cheevos!

Ironically, Newell once characterised piracy as a service problem...

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

You cannot maintain support for dead operating systems in software development.

they're not stopping to support. they're stopping your right to use it. notice the difference?

 

[janior]

ubuntu

is famous for having amazon spyware in the past, not very trustworthy, if you want something debian based just use debian

 

[just]

ubuntu

is famous for having amazon spyware in the past, not very trustworthy, if you want something debian based just use debian

xubuntu is clean

 

[Elttharion]