It’s official: Steam has just announced the end of support for Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1. These editions of Windows will no longer be supported from January 2024, so it will be mandatory to update your PC to enjoy your favorite video games.
Players who use Steam on Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 have less than a year to update their PC to Windows 10 or Windows 11. Valve’s software will no longer work on computers with these older editions of Windows from January 1, 2024according to a Steam support page.
To read: Windows 7: how to continue to use it safely despite the end of the updates?
Steam abandons older versions of Windows
” Steam’s latest features rely on a built-in version of Google Chrome, which no longer works on older versions of Windows,” the support notice reads. ” Additionally, future versions of Steam will require Windows feature and security updates only present in Windows 10 and above. “.
In order to continue using Steam as well as any games or products purchased through the platform, users will therefore have to update to a newer version of Windows, the company said. Remember, however, that Microsoft ended security updates and technical support for Windows 7 and 8.1 earlier this year. Microsoft had started ending support for Windows 7 in 2020.
According to its February survey, only a small portion of Steam users run the gaming platform on older Windows software. If more than 96% of Steam users use Windows, few are those who use the old editions: they are 1.52% to use Windows 7 and 0.34% to use Windows 8.1. In contrast, 62.33% of Steam users now use Windows 11.
In this regard, we explain here how to migrate from Windows 7 to Windows 10 for free and how to install Windows 11 from Windows 10 here.
