Steam will stop working on Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 on January 1, 2024as Valve announced in the latest update to the desktop client that allows access to its digital store.

Like many other services, Steam will stop working on older Windows systems that Microsoft has designated as end-of-life and no longer offers technical support, feature enhancements, or security patches. It is clear that you have to look for alternatives and if you are betting on Windows, you will have to update to versions 10/11.

The change was announced yesterday in the latest Steam beta update. these versions notifies players running Windows 7, 8, or 8.1 with an “End of Life” warning., with a recommendation to change or upgrade to a newer version before end of support. The notification should soon reach regular Steam customers as well. Those who remain on unsupported systems will lose access to their game library starting January 1st.

Valve points to the lack of support from other services on which its client is based: “Newer Steam features are based on the built-in version of Google Chrome, which no longer works on older versions of Windows… Future versions of Steam will also require Windows features and security updates that are only available on Windows 10 and higher. “.

Steam thus joins a long list of services that they stopped supporting older Windows. Same Google for Chrome versions 110 and later; Microsoft Edge browser or OneDrive cloud storage client; NVIDIA with their graphics card drivers and many more.

This shouldn’t be a problem on Steam, as according to Steam’s latest survey, only 1.86% of its users are still using the three mentioned versions that are delayed. The vast majority of Windows users, representing 96.37% of all active accounts on the digital gaming platform, use Windows 10 (62.33%) and Windows 11 (32.06%).

Touch update…. If you’re still betting on Windows and have a PC with a valid Windows 7/8/8.1 license, you should know that it’s still possible to upgrade to Windows 10 for free, and from there, if you want, to Windows 11 for free as well. If you do not have a valid license, we recommend that you purchase it with the offers that we regularly offer you, a genuine Windows license valid for life for only 12 euros.