Steam has died on Windows 7 and 8 - nearly a year after Valve stopped support, new Steam updates won't work on the old OSs.

Steam's latest client update is the very first one that doesn't work on old OSs, 11 months after Valve announced its decision to stop supporting them.

The accompanying documentation to the November 5 Steam Client update states: "This version of Steam client will not run on Windows 7 or Windows 8." Users on these OS versions won't automatically update to the new version of Steam client.

The real news is not that you can't download the latest version Steam on Windows 7 or 8, but rather that it has taken this long after Valve announced that support for these operating systems would end in January. Valve stated on the Steam Support website that "we expect the Steam client and older operating systems will continue to run for a while without updates after January 1, 2024." However, Valve could not guarantee continued functionality beyond this date. Valve said that the embedded version Google Chrome, which is required for core Steam functions, was the reason for the change. It doesn't support older Windows versions anymore.

In October's Steam Hardware survey, only.28% were still using Windows 7, and there were no reported Windows 8 users. This is not only a final indictment against the touchscreen-centric Windows 8 but also a bit confusing--that Windows 7 figure is higher than the percentage of Windows 7 users combined that PCG senior editor Wes Fenlon reported at the start of the year.

Please let me know if you're still playing on Windows 7 by 2024. and especially, if you installed Steam within the last year. You are fascinating. If you're still playing games on Windows 8 but have skipped the survey it's time to upgrade that college laptop. You've gotten more than your money's value.