Finally! Valve upgrades Steam to 64-bit
Steam has finally moved on from the 32-bit era
With Steam’s newest client update, Valve has officially made Steam a 64-bit application. This update comes less than a month before Valve depreciates its (now legacy) 32-bit version, which will be unsupported from January 1st 2026 onwards. This move follows last year’s removal of Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 support from Steam. This update modernises Steam and prepares the platform for future changes.
This update will be downloaded automatically for supported systems. This means that Windows 10/11 64-bit users won’t need to do anything to upgrade to this new version of Steam.
General
The Steam client is now 64-bit on Windows 11 and Windows 10 64-bit.
Systems running 32-bit versions of Windows will continue receiving updates to the 32-bit Steam client until January 1, 2026.
Fixed non-Steam browser windows erroneously being created sometimes when steamwebhelper is restarted.
– Valve – December 19th Steam Client Update
This upgrade is a non-issue for gamers
Today, Windows 10 32-bit only accounts for 0.01% of Steam’s userbase, and Windows 11 has no 32-bit version. This means that almost all PC gamers have a 64-bit-compatible PC, making the shift to 64-bit a non-issue for nearly everyone.
Why is Steam moving to full 64-bit and dropping 32-bit OS support?
Future versions of Steam will only support 64-bit OS’ moving forward. Why? The simple answer is that planned platform upgrades and core features of Steam rely on drivers and other libraries that only support 64-bit OS’. Future versions of Steam will only support 64-bit OS’. That means that users of 32-bit OS’ should upgrade their systems. Valve recommends that users do this “sooner rather than later”.
You can join the discussion on Steam’s 64-bit upgrade on the OC3D Forums.
