Steam has dropped support for Windows 7, 8, and 8.1

Valve’s Steam client no longer supports legacy Windows Operating Systems

As of January 1st, 2024, Valve’s Steam platform no longer supports older Windows operating systems. Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 support has been officially dropped, and that means that Steam users will eventually need to move to either Windows 10 or 11 to continue using Steam.

Currently, less than 1% of Steam users use Windows 7, 8, or 8.1. This makes Valve’s dropping of support for these OS’ a non-issue for most PC gamers. For now, Steam will work as normal on older Windows OS’, but in time Steam’s functionality will break for these older OS’.

Valve has confirmed that their decision to drop Windows 7/8/8.1 support was due to security concerns. This is due to the fact that Steam uses an embedded version of Google Chrome, which itself no longer supports older Windows OS’. Additionally, Valve plans to utilise Windows features that will only be available on Windows 10 and newer OS’.

Below is what Valve had to say about their decision to drop support for Windows 7, 8, and 8.1.

As of January 1 2024, Steam will officially stop supporting the Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 operating systems. After that date, existing Steam Client installations on these operating systems will no longer receive updates of any kind including security updates. Steam Support will be unable to offer users technical support for issues related to the old operating systems, and Steam will be unable to guarantee continued functionality of Steam on the unsupported operating system versions.

In order to ensure continued operation of Steam and any games or other products purchased through Steam, users should update to a more recent version of Windows. We expect the Steam client and games on these older operating systems to continue running for some time without updates after January 1st, 2024, but we are unable to guarantee continued functionality after that date.

This change is required as core 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 feature and security updates only present in Windows 10 and above.

We strongly encourage all Windows 7/8/8.1 users to update sooner rather than later. Microsoft ended security updates and technical support for Windows 7 in January 2020 and for Windows 8.1 in January 2023. Computers running these operating systems, when connected to the internet, are susceptible to new malware and other exploits which will not be patched. That malware can cause your PC, Steam and games to perform poorly or crash. That malware can also be used to steal the credentials for your Steam account or other services.

Valve has recommended that users of older Windows OS’ move to Windows 10 or Windows 11. Alternatively, these users can install Linux on their systems, another OS that Valve officially supports.

You can join the discussion on Steam dropping support for Windows 7 and Windows 8 on the OC3D Forums.