• Steam no longer runs on Windows 7 and 8 as Valve pulls support for gaming on these older operating systems.
• It is likely that around 382 800 people were still using Steam on Windows 7 as of October this year.
• Steam said last year that since, Chrome no longer supports Windows 7 and 8 and they present a malware risk, the client will no longer run on the operating systems.

Gamers on Windows 7 and 8 better hope they still have disks because, as of this week, Steam is no longer operational on these older versions of the operating system after its latest update pushed out this month.

“This version of the Steam client will no longer run on Windows 7 or Windows 8. Users on these OS versions will not automatically update to this new version of the Steam Client,” the company said in a 5th November update.

Additionally, the client will also no longer run on macOS 10.12 and 10.14.

100 million PCs were running Windows 7 worldwide in 2021, and while this number has likely declined considerably after Microsoft stopped running updates to these systems, there will still be a number of people still on the OS.

Windows 8 users will likely be affected less because the OS was far less popular, with a share of only about 2 percent of the total Windows market worldwide as of January 2023.

According to Valve’s hardware survey in October 2024, 0.29 percent of Steam users were on Windows 7 – if Steam has over 132 million monthly active users, that means that around 382 800 people worldwide are now not able to buy new games on Steam or access the client.

The survey was voluntary so it is possible that this number is higher in reality. However, it does seem to be on the sharp decline every month.

Steam said in 2023 that it decided to disallow users on Windows 7 and 8 to run the Steam Client because it was worried about the potential of malware dangers.

The most popular OS for Steam users is now Windows 11, which is the only OS that is seeing a growth in users at more than half of all Steam users, followed by Windows 10. The two operating systems make up the vast majority of Steam’s Windows users.

PCs running these older operating systems “are susceptible to new malware and other exploits which will not be patched,” Steam explained.

Additionally, since Chrome ended support for Windows 7 and 8 and Steam requires an embedded version of Chrome for core functions, this would also affect the marketplace’s ability to run on these PCs.

This leaves Windows 10, Windows 11, Linux and macOS as the only systems that are supported by the Steam Client. There is also the option to play on the Steam Deck, of course.

[Image – Photo by Alex Haney on Unsplash]