Steam have announced that at the end of this year the Windows Steam library client will cease to work on Windows 7 and 8. This means you won't be able to access Steam and your library on these versions of Windows, and any games you have installed won't run.

The reason for this is Google are ending their Chrome browser support on these OSs and Steam uses Chrome to run so it will have the knock on effect of also no longer working.

This isn't great news because many long time gamers will have Steam libraries that date back many years. Mine for example dates back 19 years to 2004 when Steam first went public and was required by the Half Life 2 Orange Box to install and run the game.

Many older games have OS system compatibility that won't run well or at all in Windows 10 and 11.

The exception to this is the Steam Deck as it runs Linux Steam OS and it's own Steam client setup, and many older games run perfectly. So running Steam OS might end up being required if you are still using an older version of Windows and want to play your older games from your Steam library.

This isn't great as Valve should be supporting their long time customer base and maintaining library access and compatibility.
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****-steam.gif
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Honestly mate, what do you NOT dislike?
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Lots of things.... but what's that got to do with having a sense of Humour?

Sometimes, a single picture can say a thousand words.
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I mean, I do agree with this but if it works through Steam OS (which I assume can be installed on almost anything that was capable of running windows 7 or 8) it's not like there's 'no option' it's more a case of 'the option is significantly less convenient' which is still a pain - but doable. I can see why Valve as a business aren't exactly keen to support OS that are pretty old now.

That being said, what's the alternative? Some kind of simple 'offline mode' to launch and play those older ones on w7/w8 without calling back to base?

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I laughed equally at both the gif (it's funny) and DC's response (it's also funny)
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Steam OS as an option is true, but being Linux and using Proton to run Windows games means it's far from compatibility with everything. Steam has over 58k games in its library, so there will be a big percentage (expecially older games) that won't run. I've only tested about 40 games on my Steam Deck and 3 wouldnt run. None of those were mainstream games but still.

But the real point is all of these games released on Steam from 2004 onwards are still there, to download and play. Even if they get removed from the store they remain in your library to download. And a lot of the older games are not compatible with Windows 10, so to run them you would need to install them in XP, Vista or 7. If the Steam client can't run then you can't download the games and they won't run locally without the Steam client either. So even if you own the games, and they are only compatible with an older OS, you can't get them onto that compatible OS or run them if they are already there.
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Surely Steam could make all the incompatible games like abandonware, thereby allowing them to work without the need for the Steam Client running?

Or release something that checks the customers Account & can then run the games off Steam Client.

Change.... Not always for the better is it.

I laughed @ DC's response too!
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