Valve has officially announced that it will no longer support Steam on some older versions of Windows: Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1. According to Valve's Steam survey, only a small percentage of users are likely to be affected by this change. But those who have been holding out on upgrading their operating system may consider switching to a more modern OS like Windows 11.
Valve's plan to wind down support for Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 means that users on these versions will lose access to Steam and their purchases. They need to upgrade to Windows 10 or 11 before January 1, 2024.
As of January 1 2024, Steam will officially stop supporting the Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 operating systems. After that date, the Steam Client will no longer run on those versions of Windows. In order to continue running Steam and any games or other products purchased through Steam, users will need to update to a more recent version of Windows.
The reason for this change is that Steam requires Chrome, which is no longer supported on these older Windows versions. In addition, new versions of Steam will require the latest security patches. They are only available on Windows 10 and newer OS versions.
Upgrading to Windows 10 shouldn't be a problem for most machines running Windows 7, but Windows 11 has new TPM requirements that may necessitate an newer device.
Source: Valve via thecommunity
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