The Steam Client is dropping support for Windows 7, 8, and 8.1

Time for an upgrade?

I hope you weren’t too attached to that Aero interface, because Valve has announced that its Steam client will no longer support Windows 7, 8, or 8.1 starting on January 1, 2024.

In a support article, Valve states that “The newest 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.”

While this specifically impacts the Steam client, it also means that you won’t be able to launch games from it. It’s not clear if you can stick with an older version and turn updates off, but Valve is suggesting it’s time to upgrade.

Maybe that’s true. Personally, I think Windows 7 was a great step up from Windows XP. Everything that followed has been a bigger and bigger mess that I mostly tolerate and hope that nothing breaks. I worked in I.T. during the transition from XP to 7 (we’ll pretend Vista never happened, the business world certainly did). When 8 came along, it was horrible for businesses, and Microsoft basically had to strongarm companies to move off of Windows 7 by ending support for it. Windows 10 isn’t bad, I guess. Windows 11… works.

In any case, if you want to keep using Steam, you’ll want to consider letting go of those better days and get back on the Operating System treadmill. Support ends for good on January 1, 2024.