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Valve will end its support of Steam on Windows XP and Windows Vista on January 1 2019
- Thread starter fluffydelusions
- Start date
it's understandable that valve doesn't want to support steam on such old OSes anymore, but at the same time, it sucks that - from the way they phrase it - this means you also won't be able to access any of the games you own that would run on those OSes either.
i feel like they should at least offer a stripped down client to download and install playable games on those platforms, even if they don't support doing anything else.
i feel like they should at least offer a stripped down client to download and install playable games on those platforms, even if they don't support doing anything else.
Bothered since Steam was really nice for trying old games on... well, decade old or more computers. I always could just get UT or CSS running to see what I was working on fast, but really not the end of the world.
Surely they could push a barebones version that can run the games. I'm not knowledgeable on that though so I dunno. People should at least be able to run their games on the old OS if they want. Oh well.
Its probably worth noting that as of May 2018's Steam Hardware & Software Survey, Windows XP 32bit accounted for 0.22% of Steam users, and XP 64 bit/Vista accounted for a userbase so small they weren't recorded
Wouldn't people be able to skirt this by just not updating Steam past whatever update they're on? If so, I'm not seeing this as a big deal.
Just don't update Steam and continue to buy games.
Just don't update Steam and continue to buy games.
Shh... Rage against Valve is the flavor of the month around these parts. /s
I think it's reasonable to want Valve to give a venue for Windows XP users to continue to access their Windows XP compatible games, even if it's just some easy way to package them up for offline storage (IIRC the existing old "backup" feature wouldn't solve this issue).
welp. does this mean we have to wait until 2019 for the rest of the UI updates? If so, that really sucks.
They'd then need to support two clients. Any change they make, or feature they add they'd then need to check things in two clients instead of just the single Steam client. Significantly increases the amount of work and potentially limits what they can do if they are unable to do something with Win XP but still need to support it for something that 0.22% of their population (and shrinking) uses.
Both of those OS' are past the official end of their life regardless and don't even receive security updates anymore. Nothing is stopping you from using it of course, but it's very ill advised to use it while connected to the internet since any exploit found will never be fixed, unless something ridiculously catastrophic happens like WannaCry did last year and MS decides to do an emergency update which was affecting a ton of businesses and people who decided to keep using WinXP past its end of life.
Win7 support will keep on for a number of years though. My guess is that they'll cut support for Win7 and Win8.1 at the same time similar to this. Win7 is EOL in Jan 2020, and Win 8.1 in Jan 2023. My guess is that by 2025 Steam will only be supporting Win10 and later.
Why would they if your games still work? New features like Steam Chat won't work though. You're eventually going to be left behind on features. It amazes me how old some of the Android systems people use too.
Oh my understanding was they gonna can those games so they are no longer playable which they where before for those people. Then that's another story. If they decided to just bail out on it then that's super shitty and they should be hit hard for it.
I think you misunderstood the OP, or I did, because it seems pretty clear your games won't work after Jan 1 next year (outside of DRM free games you already downloaded) because the client won't at all.
It's just 2018 where you'll be missing new features.
0.22% of the active Steam username is a lot of people.
Because they sells lots of games that support it?
Well Manhunt 1 from what I hear is unplayable on Windows Vista, 7 and 8.
Meaning it only works on XP - downloading it now and will test it out on my Windows 7 PC lol
No new games will support it and most of the existing games that do probably run just fine on newer OSs.
You could be right.
We encourage all users on these operating systems to upgrade to newer versions of Windows in order to have ongoing access to the latest features of Steam, and to ensure future access to all games and other Steam content.
I didn't read the last part. That sucks then but how would they do that if games work now? Couldn't you just sign out of Steam and still use them?
I think it's far beyond the reasonable point in time to drop client support for Windows XP. It'll be almost 5 years since Microsoft's own EOL date by the time Steam drops support. I don't think it is at all reasonable to expect Valve to allocate resources towards developing a separate client for that 0.22% of users.
XP is very different to how I expect Vista and 7 users to be treated as well. Valve hates Windows 10 and there's a sharp increase in power between the average XP machine and the average Vista/7 machine when it comes to processing and memory. I doubt that anyone running XP still is utilizing more than a single gigabyte of memory. How do you support those people in 2019?
Just tested out Manhunt 1 on Steam - I didnt modify the exe , use any mods or anything - just installed it and played the game at 1920x1080 resolution at 60 fps (confirmed using FRAPs).
Store page says will not work on Windows Vista, 7 and 8.
But I just played it fine on my Windows 7 PC.....
Edit: Holy smokes, this game looks loads better than GTA III and VC when it comes to visuals and animation.
I think the most important bit is actually at the start here:
"Starting on January 1 2019, Steam will officially stop supporting the Windows XP and Windows Vista operating systems. This means that 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."
As for your question about launching, the thing is most games on steam still use Steam DRM (or third party DRM) so if you sign out of Steam you can't actually start the game. My game doesn't, because DRM isn't a mandatory feature on Steam, but that's still the exception and not the norm.
I came to post this. If you haven't already ditched these OSs and gaming is the thing to make you do it then lol.
The wording of this sets an uncomfortable precedent.
Such as this sort of situation.
Such as this sort of situation.
Don't forget it's 0.22% and shrinking. I'm sure Valve has done the math on how much time/money they're spending continuing to support a dead OS, how much it's limiting them and whether any developer is even requesting or asking for continued WinXP/Vista support, and the rate at which those OS's are shrinking and came to this date combining all of that. Plus, as they call out, they use Chromium for a large portion of Steam. Chromium and Google Chrome no longer are supported on those platforms either (Chrome was discontinued in 2016). Without a significant rewrite for a shrinking OS base, they don't have many options.
Many games have cut WinXP/Vista support as well. For example, Eve Online cut support for those OS' two years ago because it was also limiting what they can do. So few games even support WinXP as most have moved on to at least Win7 as minimum.
All good things come to an end pretty much, and supporting an OS for about 16 years with Steam is pretty damn good.
Which games on Steam are an example of this? Windows has really strong back compat. Hell, you can still take many Windows 95 apps and games and run them on Windows 10. There are always going to be exceptions, but for the vast majority of the cases things will generally work.
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Fallout 3 has an issue with multi-core CPU's that you can change by editing a value in an ini file
it shouldn't be pulled but yeah Todd Howard should've fixed that a long time ago
So it doesnt matter that people are getting fucked because there aren't a lot of them? It's interesting the night and day response between this and the PS4 Fortnite debacle, well interesting in that its expected.
No one is getting fucked. People who still use XP and Vista are fucking themself.
Dropping support for old OSs isn't in any way, shape or form "fucking people".
It's so funny to me to read people saying that people on XP deserve a refund.
Steam used to work on Windows 98. Are you trying to say that Steam should retain Windows 98 support too? In 2018? Am I entitled to ask for a refund if I used to play Half-Life 2 on a Windows 98 PC but steam doesn't work there anymore? lmao
Are they forcing you to upgrade to Windows 10? No, 7 or above.
Apparently half of resetera is part of the 0.22% of Steam users on XP.
Steam used to work on Windows 98. Are you trying to say that Steam should retain Windows 98 support too? In 2018? Am I entitled to ask for a refund if I used to play Half-Life 2 on a Windows 98 PC but steam doesn't work there anymore? lmao
Are they removing old games? No.
Are they forcing you to upgrade to Windows 10? No, 7 or above.
Apparently half of resetera is part of the 0.22% of Steam users on XP.