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

[Miller]

Windows 10 is still used more for now but, that is slowly declining in favor of Windows 11.

That's also because Microsoft keeps forcing the update on the machines that can run Windows 11.
Even if you don't want to run Windows 11, you will get a message that can trick you into upgrading your system.

 

[WelperHelper99]

Honestly steam on my shitbox Win 11 laptop works great with steam. Hanvent found a game that wont run barring hardware, because Walmart laptop.

Clearly not many people are using it with 7 and 8. Upgrade to 10 at least. Or Linux. My gosh, it's just a OS.

 

[Celebrate Nite]

That's also because Microsoft keeps forcing the update on the machines that can run Windows 11.
Even if you don't want to run Windows 11, you will get a message that can trick you into upgrading your system.

My mom got this message on her laptop a week or two ago. She was freaking out until I showed her the "do not upgrade" button on the bottom.

 

[The Ugly One]

Because using 65 GB just to build programs is a bit absurd. And that's before adding the libraries you need for development.

My VS Code installation is 361 MB.

Besides, the person I was responding to wasn't saying that VS Code is too big for his computer, he was complaining that it is impossible to find instructions on the internet explaining how to configure an IDE to develop using C++ in Windows, and that there are no official guides anywhere. That's just not true.

To this day I hate how much space VS and it's related components take compared even to the most heftiest Linix development suite, which at most is 50-500 MB

GCC alone is about 3 GB (all the dependencies seem to add up to another 10 GB or so, but GNU's documentation is uhhhh). LLVM is about the same. Eclipse's installer is around 500 MB. VTune takes over 1GB. What tools are you using? What have you ever used that you think a Linux dev environment tops out at 500 MB?

Granted, WSL is garbage and you are better off dual booting if you want to test software on Linux. I've been using WSL for a year now and can't tell you how slow it is for me to run very basic commands

I haven't had any performance or compile time problems with WSL 2 in Windows 11, and I'm working on a pretty demanding application. But, you know, "works on my machine" and all that. No idea what's wrong with your installation. The only issue I have is anything that needs to be visualized and uses OpenGL, but I had low expectations for that going in. Terminal works fine.

 

[Geddy Lee's Fee and See]

My VS Code installation is 361 MB.

GCC alone is about 3 GB (all the dependencies seem to add up to another 10 GB or so). LLVM is about the same. Eclipse's installer is around 500 MB. VTune takes over 1GB. What tools are you using?

VS Code is just an editor though. You can use all that on Linux or MacOS. I'm talking about Visual Studio, the actual development software most Windows users use for compilation and project management. I lowballed the size of GCC amd LLVM like you pointed out later but it takes between 20-50 GB for a standard install depending on what you need. Why? Not even a question about some botnet nullshit. What makes this software need that much space and why can't it bw implemented more efficiently? At some point, you have to wonder why the developers of this application just have no respect for the disk space on my computer.


Sure it says a minimum of 850 MB, but that's highly optimistic to the point of being an impossible edge case.

Besides, the person I was responding to wasn't saying that VS Code is too big for his computer, he was complaining that it is impossible to find instructions on the internet explaining how to configure an IDE to develop using C++ in Windows, and that there are no official guides anywhere. That's just not true.

I agree thats 's not true, but unless you have to absolutely use Windows for the job, it's better to use something that doesn't take much space and generally is more complicated to use than any other compiler suite and more out of spec too. I get that Microsoft can do what they want on their own OS. I just think C++ development for Windows is not their top priority and it shows.

I haven't had any performance or compile time problems with WSL 2 in Windows 11, and I'm working on a pretty demanding application. But, you know, "works on my machine" and all that. No idea what's wrong with your installation. The only issue I have is anything that needs to be visualized and uses OpenGL, but I had low expectations for that going in. Terminal works fine.

WSL is just hell for me really. I liked the novelty of it, but switching to Linux just was more time efficient and generally useful for me than tinkering to get WSL to work for the 10000th time.

 

[IDanceonTrannyGraves]

Welcome to the all digital future.

 

[The Ugly One]

VS Code is just an editor though. You can use all that on Linux or MacOS. I'm talking about Visual Studio, the actual development software most Windows users use for compilation and project management.

You do not have to install all of Visual Studio to get the MSVC compiler. You can just install the build tools:

https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads/#remote-tools-for-visual-studio-2022

If all you want is a raw C++ compiler, something analogous to a gcc installation, it's a 6.6 GB installation. At the last place I had to do Windows development, Visual Studio was rapidly being replaced by VS Code. VS Code is just better. There was a nice effort to make Studio suck less in 2015 or so, but eh. It's a dinosaur. I haven't used it in years.

Why? Not even a question about some botnet nullshit. What makes this software need that much space and why can't it bw implemented more efficiently?

If you're developing in Windows, you're probably developing Windows applications, not just low-level compute kernels or command-line utilities, which is ironically what I do. Now, I did bring up the installer to see how big MSVC was, so I'm looking at a few other components that I, personally, don't need, but expect your average Windows dev does (Linux has always been my lead platform). Universal Windows Platform build tools add 10 GB. Then throw in .NET so you can build multiplatform visual applications in C# and whatever, and that's another 10 GB. I don't develop visual desktop applications, so I really have no clue what all goes into a package like that, but a comparable package is Xcode, which is 32 GB. Qt Creator is a pretty popular platform for developing visual apps if you must support Linux, and it has a 30 GB installation. So I think the answer is that you need a whole lot of stuff to write a visual desktop application.

 

[Justwandering02]

found a post on tumblr that show how to disactivate the auto-update on steam. did it and I'm still able to run it

 

[Squishie PP]

Windows 7 holdouts are going to have a much harder time in the future because of things like this.
If you really need to keep using Windows 7, the only way forward is to install all the games in your library, then either keep your Windows 7 installation disconnected from the internet, or do as this post suggests:

found a post on tumblr that show how to disactivate the auto-update on steam. did it and I'm still able to run it

Mind sharing instructions? This will be helpful.

 

[IamnottheNSA]

Mind sharing instructions? This will be helpful.

Create a file "steam.cfg" in your steam folder and add the following lines to it:

BootStrapperInhibitAll=enable
BootStrapperForceSelfUpdate=disable

That should do it.
Also, if you launch Steam from a shortcut, you can add this to it:
-noverifyfiles -nobootstrapupdate -skipinitialbootstrap -norepairfiles -overridepackageurl
It's not needed if you already have steam.cfg, but still something to keep in mind.

By the way, I like how even the latest builds still support Win7.
I get the feeling we are still gonna squeeze a bunch more years out of that thing. Hell, people with Windows XP still manage to authenticate and start games using the old 2018 client (not without jumping through some hoops, mind you, but still)!

By the way, since Steam is a glorified Chromium app, currently running on Chromium 109, I wonder if we can replace certain critical files with the ones from Supermium to make it work again once it no longer works. I don't count on it, but maybe...

 

[IamnottheNSA]

Bad news, everyone.
Remember how Steam was running on Chromium 109, meaning it was still possible to run it on 7/8/8.1 in spite of it not being officially supported anymore? Well, apparently the new beta builds are now running on Chromium 126. This means that, unless what I posted above is true and it is possible to swap some files to make the newer versions of Steam work on 7/8/8.1 again, there will be no more updates.
I found a discussion regarding the method that I mentioned, so maybe something will work out. Don't count on it though.

 

[ForkyMeetsPorky]

I don't understand why Value doesn't offer a legacy client with the browser/Chrome stuff removed, and just serves as a launcher for games. Or what GoG does and allow you to download the game's installer to run on an older system without the client being installed.

 

[Ah ha']

found a post on tumblr that show how to disactivate the auto-update on steam. did it and I'm still able to run it

I had to reinstall windows today and now I am unable to run Steam I tried a couple youtube tutorials dated for september/24 but all im getting is a message that says “your os is too old” or it comes up with a grey box with no login prompt.

Edit: for more context I did have an older steam folder but I had deleted it after I found it wasnt running, then I downloaded the latest steam installer and I was getting messages telling my system is too old.

I see @IamnottheNSA already made mention that the latest betas moved a chromium version. I read that people who still had steam installed are able to stop auto updates and continue using it. But that isnt me

If you got any leads please post them, while I do have linux with steam running on it already its not my only computer and I prefer my old toaster for my games

I just dont understand how this has to be the way we go, I cant attribute this to stupidity or jeets, because atleast jeets know like all 3rd world nations they would prefer to run old os’s on their old shitty computers. Why cant i just have something that works? I am pretty tech literate but that doesnt mean I like bashing my head over this for hours trying to solve the puzzle of random applications breaking. But here we go, now im committed i cant afford to be depressed.

 

[TheHarbinger]

I just dont understand how this has to be the way we go

It's all part of forced obsolescence models. This especially works when every electronic device is internet connected and tons of software requires a constant connection to some server. It's also why so much old software is never turned over to the public for free like 'outdated' versions of Windows, Office, or old games that are not even available for purchase anymore.

We have large groups of people gleefully erasing old software and art from existence and use.

 

[Kosher Dill]

It's all part of forced obsolescence models.

I don't think that's what's specifically going on here. Once you make the (stupid) decision to do a browser-based app - particularly one where people are spending real money - you're essentially locked into the upgrade treadmill because all browsers are absolutely full of major security holes.

 

[IamnottheNSA]

Bad news, everyone.
Remember how Steam was running on Chromium 109, meaning it was still possible to run it on 7/8/8.1 in spite of it not being officially supported anymore? Well, apparently the new beta builds are now running on Chromium 126. This means that, unless what I posted above is true and it is possible to swap some files to make the newer versions of Steam work on 7/8/8.1 again, there will be no more updates.
I found a discussion regarding the method that I mentioned, so maybe something will work out. Don't count on it though.

By the way, if anyone is still interested, at the time of this writing there is a way to make even the latest version of Steam client run with Windows 7. You'll need to jump through some hoops to get it running, like installing VxKex (whick will also let you run some other Win10-only programs on 7) and then disable some hardware acceleration options in Steam's Interface settings so that its UI doesn't freak out at you, but in the end it will work like a charm. You would still want to disable automatic updates after doing this though - there is no telling how long this method will work.
This guide worked for me (installing Legacy Update isn't necessary):

 

[Tablet County]

So long as they don't force me to use 11 we're all good. If and when that happens I will finally mainline GoG as they deserve.

 

[IamnottheNSA]

By the way, if anyone is still interested, at the time of this writing there is a way to make even the latest version of Steam client run with Windows 7. You'll need to jump through some hoops to get it running, like installing VxKex (whick will also let you run some other Win10-only programs on 7) and then disable some hardware acceleration options in Steam's Interface settings so that its UI doesn't freak out at you, but in the end it will work like a charm. You would still want to disable automatic updates after doing this though - there is no telling how long this method will work.
This guide worked for me (installing Legacy Update isn't necessary):

UPDATE: VxKex hasn't updated in awhile, and with latest version of Steam (1751405894) there are some bugs if you try to run it with VxKex - such as tray icon for Steam not showing up, or download UI being stuck at 0% while the games are actually being downloaded. Fortunately, someone forked it and has been frequently updating it ever since. So, if you want Steam to run without bugs, you'll need to download VxKex NEXT instead. I tested it with the version 1.1.3.1545 - Steam works perfectly fine.