We often say that as long as old computers play less demanding games, they can still fight for another ten years, but what if Steam does not support it? If you are still using Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 8.1, be aware that the Steam client will end support for versions earlier than Windows 10 on January 1, 2024, which means you only have about 8 months Time to upgrade your computer.
Valve explained that this is mainly because the Steam client has an embedded Google Chrome browser, which ended support for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 in February. Not only that, future versions of Steam will use features that only Windows 10 can provide, so I can only say sorry to Windows 7 and Windows 8 users.
As PC Gamer pointed out, the impact isn’t really that big. According to Valve’s own latest statistics, the current number of users of Windows 10 and Windows 11 accounted for 62.33% and 32.06% of the total respectively, and the two combined accounted for nearly 94.5% of the spectrum. Relatively speaking, Windows 7 is only about 1.52%, and WIndows 8.1 is only 0.34%, which are actually very small. Even so, that’s a lot of money considering Steam’s massive user base, and older computers that can’t be upgraded to Windows 10 are less useful.
But even if it’s not Steam, there is pressure to upgrade from elsewhere. Microsoft has ended support for Windows 7 in January 2020, and Windows 8.1 will end support in early 2023. Epic Games also no longer supports these two operating systems. In fact, in comparison, Steam can last until next year, which is actually relatively tolerant.