Steam dropping Windows 7 and Windows 8 Support in 2024 - because of course a game platform is locked to one shitty web browser

[Death of an Ego]

Ya know, of all the things to get salty at steam over, this to me is kinda low on the list. Way I see it, M$ sort of forced their hand some. If you run a recent gaming pc, it shouldn't be all that difficult to run 7 in a VM, whether on win or linux. You still have some time to get everything up and running that doesn't go through steam servers till next year if you want to stick with 7, and I can understand why you would. Bonus points if you run all the VM's through a tiny linux top os. I also think that as I type this, people are making workarounds, wrappers, that sort of thing to make this not so much of an issue. That's the best thing about PC gaming. You are basically never locked out of the games entirely.

I kinda hate this, because 7 was really the best version of windows I've ever used, I hated to leave it, and I've used every version since 1.0. 10 is usable, but 11 is just a giant fuck you to the customer. It isn't really relevant to the thread topic, but OS as a service is horrible bullshit.

 

[Fcret]

I'm honestly shocked that there are people still using Windows 7 in this thread.

The amount of retardation required to daily drive an operating system that's not had a security update in three years is astronomical.

 

[Lone Wandering Courier]

I'm honestly shocked that there are people still using Windows 7 in this thread.

The amount of retardation required to daily drive an operating system that's not had a security update in three years is astronomical.

I think it's possible to daily drive Windows 7 in 2023 without being digitally raped, it's just I don't see the point when Linux exists.

 

[Pissmaster]

I'm honestly shocked that there are people still using Windows 7 in this thread.

The amount of retardation required to daily drive an operating system that's not had a security update in three years is astronomical.

I'd say it's more akin to using a power tool that's entirely held together with duct tape and glue. If it does the job you need it to, fine, but it's not gonna get any easier to use, and someday it'll just become unusable.

 

[Cpt. Stud Beefpile]

I think it's possible to daily drive Windows 7 in 2023 without being digitally raped, it's just I don't see the point when Linux exists.

...because Linux is STILL a pain in the ass requiring too much mucking about on the CLI, building your own programs from source instead of "download, double-click, done.", is still prone to running into cryptic errors that require posting on help forums and praying, as well as hoping that every other package install doesn't fail because of a missing dependency that vanished from the Internet without a trace months/years ago.

I say this as an oldbeard who grew up on motherfucking Dos 5 and remembers upgrading to 6.22:

Winblows is and always will be the vast majority of the market share because the ubernoobs behind the Linux scene still have not addressed some fundamental issues that prevent Joe Average from just up and switching.

As much I wish the tables turned and Microsloth's stock dropped faster than a feminist's panties in the presence of a Chad, in the last 20 years the progress on "it just works" for the non-tech wizards of the world has been wholly inadequate for this to happen.

 

[ZMOT]

I'm honestly shocked that there are people still using Windows 7 in this thread.

The amount of retardation required to daily drive an operating system that's not had a security update in three years is astronomical.

there are ways around it, people go to great length to keep using win7 - if they use it connected to the internet to begin with, which makes no security updates a moot point.
personally I'd just redirect that energy and use linux, but it's their pc, time and money. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

...because Linux is STILL a pain in the ass requiring too much mucking about on the CLI, building your own programs from source instead of "download, double-click, done.", is still prone to running into cryptic errors that require posting on help forums and praying, as well as hoping that every other package install doesn't fail because of a missing dependency that vanished from the Internet without a trace months/years ago.

I say this as an oldbeard who grew up on motherfucking Dos 5 and remembers upgrading to 6.22:

maybe use a newer linux or windows since then? these fucking myths and misconceptions are just as old.

windows has you constantly do shit with the run command (guess that doesn't count as CLI) or even powershell when their UI fucks up again. most linux distros have a fucking app store which makes installing stuff as easy on mobile, while on windows you gonna juggle individual setups from potentially questionable sites (which you'd have to grab manually, adding another attack vendor via brower - or are you gonna tell me you download all your setup.exes from sites like download.com?) or use the windows store (lol) which is curated like ass. and god help when you have an issue on windows that doesn't drown you in dozens of google pages from MCP pajeets spamming their "please run sfc.exe /scannow" macros (where's do you think to put that or where is that in the windows GUI?)

there is no perfect system and both have their own issues, but the reality is also most people have zero fucking clue how shit works, they simply ask "the guy who knows computers and stuff" or just use google to run some weird ass program to "fix" their shit, click shit they don't know what it means or copy&paste in some weird commands after pressing win+R. they'd do that in linux too, but there's a good chance there that issue never comes up or has better protection to not cause other problems, or if push comes to shove, better documentation and community support and ways to fix it (good luck ever "fixing" a broken windows and not just reinstalling everything).

here's another thing linux probably will never do (maybe if you're a footfag, but if you use gnome it's your own fault):

btw, have you noticed how to "fix" it? just saying

 

[Fcret]

...because Linux is STILL a pain in the ass requiring too much mucking about on the CLI, building your own programs from source instead of "download, double-click, done.", is still prone to running into cryptic errors that require posting on help forums and praying, as well as hoping that every other package install doesn't fail because of a missing dependency that vanished from the Internet without a trace months/years ago.

I say this as an oldbeard who grew up on motherfucking Dos 5 and remembers upgrading to 6.22:

Winblows is and always will be the vast majority of the market share because the ubernoobs behind the Linux scene still have not addressed some fundamental issues that prevent Joe Average from just up and switching.

As much I wish the tables turned and Microsloth's stock dropped faster than a feminist's panties in the presence of a Chad, in the last 20 years the progress on "it just works" for the non-tech wizards of the world has been wholly inadequate for this to happen.

This isn't 1995 anymore. No one builds their fucking packages from source unless they're insane and want -march=native/-O3/-funroll-programming-socks. Dependencies from major binary distributions don't just vanish because they're all maintained across like 100 different mirrors.

And also you don't even touch the CLI on modern Linux. You just use an app store.

And the Wangblows 'just download an exe and install it bro' model has always fucking sucked. I sure do like it when random programs overwrite my system DLLs; Or when uninstalling one program breaks like ten others because the uninstall wizard for the first program removed a bunch of DLLs other programs also depend on. Living without sane dependency management sure is great and not at all a massive fucking hole in the design of the operating system. Oh, but it's actually fine because every application gets around this by shipping with its own set of DLLs separate from everything else... and Windows users wonder why everything is so bloated and shitty.

The only reason to use Windows in 2023 is if a program you need doesn't have a loonix alternative or you're still in thrall to the nvidia jew.

 

[Freya 333 Kalki 999]

hopefully a modded steam version still runs in win7

 

[guiltyspark85]

This isn't 1995 anymore. No one builds their fucking packages from source unless they're insane and want -march=native/-O3/-funroll-programming-socks. Dependencies from major binary distributions don't just vanish because they're all maintained across like 100 different mirrors.

And also you don't even touch the CLI on modern Linux. You just use an app store.

And the Wangblows 'just download an exe and install it bro' model has always fucking sucked. I sure do like it when random programs overwrite my system DLLs; Or when uninstalling one program breaks like ten others because the uninstall wizard for the first program removed a bunch of DLLs other programs also depend on. Living without sane dependency management sure is great and not at all a massive fucking hole in the design of the operating system. Oh, but it's actually fine because every application gets around this by shipping with its own set of DLLs separate from everything else... and Windows users wonder why everything is so bloated and shitty.

The only reason to use Windows in 2023 is if a program you need doesn't have a loonix alternative or you're still in thrall to the nvidia jew.

I don't think DLL hell has been a problem since the Win 9x days, at least in my experience. XP introduced the Windows Component Store, which has per application versioning of DLL files. On more modern versions of Windows, the system32 directory has special elevated permissions that doesn't even allow admins to modify it. So unless you've intentionally changed the permissions, I'm not sure how programs have overwritten system DLLs.

With Linux, it's probably dependent on hardware and software you're using, but I found myself in the terminal when I recently installed Fedora KDE on my laptop. There might have been a GUI way to do it, but suggested instructions for setting up some 3rd party repositories, such as RPM Fusion and Brave were for the terminal.

But a major issue I had was my touchpad sensitivity was far too high and couldn't be configured to an acceptable setting through the GUI. The suggested workaround was downloading some program off Github that hacked libinput or something. The install instructions were of course for the terminal and seemed to assume I had somethings installed already. I was having to other issues, so at that point said fuck it and went back to Windows.

Realise I probably have the "wrong" hardware and chose the "wrong" distro. But I've been hearing from Linux users for 20 years about how all the software is in the repositories, there's no need to compile anything and probably more recently, maybe past 5 years or so, how great Linux is on laptops.

And going back to DLL hell, I recall reading about a Glibc release that broke a bunch of programs on Linux. So I'm not sure the traditional Linux way of doing things is superior. Flatpaks seem to be the new way of doing things that avoids this problem, but the way I understand it, this is using some similar ideas to the Windows Component Store.

 

[Pissmaster]

And the Wangblows 'just download an exe and install it bro' model has always fucking sucked. I sure do like it when random programs overwrite my system DLLs; Or when uninstalling one program breaks like ten others because the uninstall wizard for the first program removed a bunch of DLLs other programs also depend on. Living without sane dependency management sure is great and not at all a massive fucking hole in the design of the operating system. Oh, but it's actually fine because every application gets around this by shipping with its own set of DLLs separate from everything else... and Windows users wonder why everything is so bloated and shitty.

I haven't had DLL problems in ages, and way back when I did, it's because I was trying to run some esotertic program with an anime girl in the background that'd strip away unnecessary data from my DS roms so I could fit more on my 1gb microSD. I'd imagine any normie using Windows nowadays could use it for years and never even know that DLLs exist.

 

[ZMOT]

Realise I probably have the "wrong" hardware and chose the "wrong" distro. But I've been hearing from Linux users for 20 years about how all the software is in the repositories, there's no need to compile anything and probably more recently, maybe past 5 years or so, how great Linux is on laptops.

what is it with winfags where jumping through all kinds of hoops the second you step outside the norm (or even want to remove a fucking pride flag forced on you) is considered totally acceptable, but doing the same on linux means it's the worst OS ever that never progressed past the 90's? remember this is the "oh windows fucked with the start menu, just install another program bro!" OS, let alone "oh, dat old windows that does everything it needs and you're used to? have fun getting a forced update lawl!" - and no, LTSC is far outside most people's reach or even knowledge.

people should use whatever they prefer, but this borderline cuck mentality is grating, never mind it gives MS a free pass to pull all kinds of shit but again that's "ok" somehow...

I haven't had DLL problems in ages, and way back when I did, it's because I was trying to run some esotertic program with an anime girl in the background that'd strip away unnecessary data from my DS roms so I could fit more on my 1gb microSD. I'd imagine any normie using Windows nowadays could use it for years and never even know that DLLs exist.

until some old game or program requires some old-ass DLL, then good lucking figuring that out, especially as a normalfag. windows famed compatibility doesn't necessarily mean everything can run as is.
next step for normies is usually "google ddl" and install whatever pops up first... better hope it's not an old version that will crash whatever you try to do with an even worse error message (or none at all).

 

[guiltyspark85]

what is it with winfags where jumping through all kinds of hoops the second you step outside the norm (or even want to remove a fucking pride flag forced on you) is considered totally acceptable, but doing the same on linux means it's the worst OS ever that never progressed past the 90's? remember this is the "oh windows fucked with the start menu, just install another program bro!" OS, let alone "oh, dat old windows that does everything it needs and you're used to? have fun getting a forced update lawl!" - and no, LTSC is far outside most people's reach or even knowledge.

people should use whatever they prefer, but this borderline cuck mentality is grating, never mind it gives MS a free pass to pull all kinds of shit but again that's "ok" somehow...

Not trying to say Windows is perfect out of the box, and I don't have to go and configure a bunch of stuff and install 3rd party software to get my environment to my liking - have not problem with that at all.

But when I just want a basic normie environment for browsing the web and watching videos, and have hearing from Linux people that it "just works" and has been for years, but is clearly not to be the case, I've got to call bullshit.

There also seems to be a certain smugness from Linux users about how advanced their desktop environments are and shit on Microsofts failure with the Windows 8 start menu. But when I installed stock Fedora, which uses the stock GNOME config, it had basically the same style phone/tablet interface for launching programs.

And yes, realise other GNOME based distros have things configured out of the box with a "start menu" extension and other things that make it less dumbed down. I have to question the GNOME fanatics, as I much preferred KDE as I could tweak all kinds of settings in the GUI.

With GNOME I could expose some extra settings in GNOME Tweaks (or whatever it's called), but ultimately had to edit the GNOME equivalent of the registry to do what I thought would be some pretty basic stuff like disable middle mouse click. This was so I wouldn't be constantly pasting shit from my clipboard when I pressed the wrong area on my touchpad.

Having said all that, I run a few game servers on Linux. Perfectly happy with using it as server OS and doing shit in the terminal, editing config files and all that. Just think it's joke of a desktop OS, at least for my purposes.

 

[Tsar Nicky]

So not only has modern gaming made me a digital DRM slave (GOG, but still digital shit), it is now going to force me to learn fucking Linux. Fuck sake, better get the socks out. I have Windows 10 but it's only a matter of time before that fucking horrendous piece of hardware throttling spyware that's coming up will be required for Stream

 

[frozen_runner]

That's it. I'm pirating everything from now on.

 

[Cpt. Stud Beefpile]

That's it. I'm pirating everything from now on.

What makes me really MATI is the fact that even that won't help completely.

I've generally dropped away from online multiplayer games but there are a handful that depend on a Steam central server and there's no alternative to it unless some madlad leaks the entire source code.

 

[Orkney]

That's it. I'm pirating everything from now on.

Might be a better choice performance-wise too.

 

[TracdacianTortoise]

So many willing tech bro/big tech shit eaters and apologists here I see.



Not deleted but what about games that don't work on newer OS's? I've had Steam force update to use it or any games at all. Are they going to lock down older versions like this?



That part, if true as stated. Is bullshit! There are ALREADY games, major dev/pub games, on steam that DO NOT work on modern systems but are still sold. So I have little doubt that they care about this. All this for basically a downloader update... An overcomplicated authoritarian downloader and gatekeeper.

Christ you're retarded. Steam has no control over that. There are countless games on Steam that have been made available for purchase, and will not run on any OS newer than XP without hacking. Ensuring games run on your computer is not Steam's responsibility, it's the person who made the games, and games are also by far the worst when it comes to compatibility. If you want to get angry, get angry at publishers who sell games without patching them for modern systems.

The primary reason for the "EOL" shit with Steam is them upgrading the Chromium component, that allows fuckwads their little browser inside of games and to look up guides without alt-tabbing. It's been out of date for ages, and would regularly crash completely if you went to a site with too much JS bullshit.

Steam also, by far, has the best reputation for allowing people to keep games even when they're pulled from distribution outside of GOG, and by offering Steam DRM, which basically does nothing, but prevents people from just copying shit, they largely killed off the abhorrent DRM shit that PC games used to come with that'd make your games unusable even if you had them on disc after just a few years. Big companies still use shit DRM, but the vast majority of PC games now just use Steam DRM, meaning that even if Steam were to disappear tomorrow, if you had the files, it is trivially easy to run the game.

 

[Canned Ham]

You can find Windows 10 LTSC. That should run Steam fine, without the spyware.

 

[Georgio Cocklord]

I'm honestly shocked that there are people still using Windows 7 in this thread.

The amount of retardation required to daily drive an operating system that's not had a security update in three years is astronomical.

Windows 10 is a step towards an android OS, I can't bring myself to use it with how dumb the interface is and how many options it lacks. Finding event viewer is a fucking pain, installing anything immediately adds it to a fucking list with all the internet connection verification shenanigans, harder to install pirated software with defender breathing down my throat for getting flash cs6 or office 2016, all the telemetry spyware faggotry is there with user data tracking, disabling program volumes takes navigating across 3 different tabs into settings to disable, settings has vastly limited options and much much more. I can't use windows 10, fuck Microsoft for trying to turn windows into a glorified Android operating system with proprietary spyware. Windows 7 seems far more advanced on the surface just from the options it offers the user and even if there's signs of breakage recently with newer software fucking up my system, I will continue to use it till it breaks completely.

 

[ZMOT]

Finding event viewer is a fucking pain,

it's literally a right-click on the windows button.

now, if you want to run it under an admin account (if you need other stuff like device manager or partitions), that's a bit more complicated but basically boils down to open an command prompt as admin and typing mmc, or simply putting it into the run dialog and press ctrl+shift+enter to run it as admin (windows 11 got a checkbox).
that's the same procedure for windows 7 btw.

windows 10 is shit as it is, but that's just par the course for windows. windows 7 also had a lot of those "funny quirks", which is the same reason people kept using XP (which was also bloated fisher price shit when you came from windows 2000).