Valve plans to end Steam’s Windows XP and Vista support in 2019

Valve has released an official end date for Windows XP/Vista support on their Steam platform, allowing the company to abandon some older aspects of their desktop platform and modernise their gaming ecosystem. 

Starting on January 1st, 2019, Steam will no longer support Windows XP or Vista operating systems, forcing gamers on those platforms to update to Windows 7 or newer Microsoft operating systems. Linux users will be unaffected by this change. 

New features of the Steam Windows desktop client will require modern operating systems to function, with Valve’s “New Steam Chat” acting as the first of what could become many examples. Valve’s new Steam Chat uses an embedded version of Google’s Chrome web browser, an application that no longer supports some older versions of Windows, forcing Valve/Steam to abandon Windows XP/Vista. 
  

Abandoning legacy operating systems will allow Valve to modernise Steam in a number of ways, hopefully allowing the storefront to become more user-friendly and offer new features. 

Steam remains the world’s leading PC gaming storefront, though this position will is not guaranteed to last forever unless Valve makes an effort to improve their ecosystem. 

You can join the discussion on Valve’s plans to end Windows XP/Vista support on Steam on the OC3D Forums.