Back in March of last year, Steam announced that it would be ending its support for Windows 7 and Windows 8. From this point on, users of the unsupported OS will no longer receive normal or security updates.
Steam Support will also no longer provide technical support to users who have issues with the old operating system. Though it explained that games will continue to run on the outdated operating system past 1 January 2024, there is no guarantee that it will stay that way.
With this, Valve urges its user base to update to a more recent version of Windows to avoid any hiccups. The company further explained that this change is necessary as it is trying to keep pace with Google Chrome, which itself no longer works on the older Windows versions. Additionally, future versions of Steam will require Windows feature and security updates that are only available in Windows 10 and above.
This news is not really surprising; according to Steam’s recent Hardware & Software Survey, a collective 95.4% of Windows users are either on Windows 10 (53.45%) or Windows 11 (41.95%), with the outliers not even managing 1%. Heck, even those running the gaming platform on MacOS outnumber them.
Windows 7 has arguably been a great OS (though you can form your own opinions about Windows 8) and its not really surprising that, despite support having stopped for three years, people still prefer it over the new ones. However, if you care for your games or your data, it’s best to update now, as these systems will no longer be able to protect you from new kinds of malware.
(Source: Steam)
