Steam has now officially stopped supporting Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1.::95.57 percent of surveyed Steam users are already on Windows 10 and 11, with nearly 2 percent of the remainder on Linux and 1.5 percent on Mac — so we may be talking about fewer than 1 percent of users on these older Windows builds. Older versions of MacOS will also lose support on February 15th, just a month and a half from now. Correction: It’s macOS 10.13 and 10.14 that are losing support. Not macOS period.

  • @[email protected]
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    2311 months ago

    Out of curiosity (I no longer run win 7 at all so can’t check), does this mean steam will give an error if you try to run it on win 7 and will refuse to run? Or is this just valve saying they are no longer committed to releasing any updates for win 7? Or a combination of the two where they aren’t deliberately making it incompatible, but they also aren’t deliberately making it compatible so some patch is expected to break it entirely, maybe even today?

    • @[email protected]
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      2411 months ago

      End of support means no more security updates. MS already ended support for Win 7 which has numerous unpatched vulnerabilities.

    • @[email protected]
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      -2911 months ago

      Steam is basically a DRM system which means you won’t be able to run any of your existing games on Windows 7/8. It will break all your steam games either immediately or within days.

  • NoFuckingWaynado
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    2011 months ago

    No big. Just run everything in compatibility mode and pick Windows 10 or 11.

    /s

  • @[email protected]
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    1711 months ago

    Lmao i only knew they could stop supporting windows 7, people uae more windows 7 than windows 8

    • @[email protected]
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      311 months ago

      Launching 8 for the first time was almost as bad as time I first experienced vista, so I can understand there being fewer 8 users.

      • @[email protected]
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        3211 months ago

        The un-fucking of Windows 8 release

        It actually was a pretty useable OS most of the time

        • @[email protected]
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          1411 months ago

          Yup, it was a very solid OS. It’s similar to how people remember XP, but what they really remember is XP Service Pack 2 which was the rock solid version.

        • @[email protected]
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          611 months ago

          I used 8.1 all the way until around 2019, when I finally relented and switched to 10 (on 11 now). Take Windows 7 and 10, and do a “greatest hits” edition, and you have 8.1. It was basically 7 with some features that went into 10 mixed in. A fine OS for daily driving.

          I would have used it for longer; only upgraded because you’d run into random little issues and bugs with various programs cause no one used it.

      • @[email protected]
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        2911 months ago

        Windows 8.1 was a major update that undid a lot of UI updates that people didn’t like after 7

        • @21Cabbage
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          11 months ago

          I didn’t conceptually hate the UI there was just so much room for improvement in implementation, if I recall correctly. I was only using a Windows machine for a short time during that era though.

          • @[email protected]
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            211 months ago

            That’s why the Win10 start menu was better.
            Tiles where it’s appropiate and you could even nake the start full screen to top it of.

            • @[email protected]
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              211 months ago

              And then the Windows 11 came in and replaced those sweet flexibility with generic row of icons on top with the app list now in the separate menu and the bottom of the menu is wasted on ads and other garbage

              Geez thank you Microsoft, you guys definitely went backwards with this one

              • @[email protected]
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                211 months ago

                Not like there were sponsored tiles on Win10 (at a minimum 1803 when I started to use Windows professionally and saw lot’s of desktops)

    • @[email protected]
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      811 months ago

      How’s the experience, overall? I love the Steam Deck OS UI, so I’m thinking of building an AMD machine to run Chimera OS. I’ve heard nothing but problems when it comes to Windows 11.

      I don’t intend on playing competitive shooters, so idc about kernel anticheat keeping me out of Call of Duty or whatever.

      • Something Burger 🍔
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        911 months ago

        I play exclusively on Linux. Almost every game I tried worked flawlessly. The very few that didn’t, crashed on startup or a few minutes after. If you don’t play AAA online games with anticheat then you should be good. As a rule of thumb, if it works on the Deck then it will work on any Linux distro.

        • @[email protected]
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          311 months ago

          Hell yeah! I’ve only experienced a few crashes on SD, and so far only on 2 emulated games that I’m okay with just not playing. I love that Valve started really investing in Linux support to make it possible for idiots like me to have somewhere to turn when Microsoft phones it in.

        • @[email protected]
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          211 months ago

          I appreciate the link, but I was more asking about the general experience than about game compatibility. I have a Steam Deck and am enjoying the game functionality, and I haven’t hit too many snags in general PC usage on it yet in desktop mode (but I’ve barely used it for that). I’m really just asking around as a medium level Windows user about fully replacing my Windows laptop with a Chimera build to see what concessions I’ll need to accept to have realistic expectations. I’m optimistic that frustrations will be mostly at the “dang it, oh well” level which I could either live with or find a layman level solution to kinda fix. So far, the only real concern I’ve found with my plan to build a modern Chimera steam machine is that the parts I want will cost me like $1500, and that’s pretty hard to justify when I already have a Steam Deck, PS5, and a 2015 Windows 10 laptop. It’s another expensive device that kinda just does what my current shit can already do, just all in one rig. If my laptop or PS5 died, I’d have a lot more reason to go for it.

          • Refurbished Refurbisher
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            11 months ago

            If you already have a Steam Deck, then you are basically already familiar with Linux gaming. The software-side of things (Steam, Proton, etc) is going to be the same on desktop Linux.

            If a game is compatible with the Deck, then it is also comaptible with desktop.

            I’ve been a Linux gamer for about a decade now. I stick with single player games, so I generally don’t have any issues, other than a minor tweak or DLL override I sometimes have to do, but that’s no different than trying to run older games on Windows.

            Only real issue would be installing mods, which is possible, but could require some extra work, such as manually setting DLL overrides. I’ve had trouble getting Reloaded II to work in Linux, for example, even though they claim they support Linux.

          • @[email protected]
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            11 months ago

            Maybe the opinion of someone who switched recently would be more useful to you. I’m probably a little biased since I’ve been exclusively running linux for almost 20 years now

            and a 2015 Windows 10 laptop

            It’s very easy to create a bootable USB stick to just try it out and, if you have enough hard disk to spare and your experience is fine, make it dual boot. This way you can assess if it works for you or not

            • @[email protected]
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              311 months ago

              Wow, I can’t believe I didn’t think of using a USB stick to try this out. I feel like an idiot lol.

              But now that I think about it, I don’t think it will work right because my laptop is Intel/Nvidia and I keep seeing that Chimera doesn’t work great unless you’re running AMD/AMD. If it runs at all, I’m sure it won’t be representative of the experience I’d have with the build I would want. But that’s something pretty straightforward that I completely overlooked, so thanks for the suggestion!

      • @[email protected]
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        11 months ago

        Especially if you’re not gonna play stuff that the anticheat locks you out from, the experience is great. As other commenters have said, ProtonDB.com has resources for how well games on steam run under Proton / On Linux.

        Although, I would recommend Nobara Linux over Chimera OS due to a lack of experience with Proton and other gaming-related tools (as in, Chimera developers’ lack of experience). Nobara Linux comes from the same developer as Proton-GE (GloriousEggroll). Proton is the tool that Valve developed to run Windows games pretty much seemlessly, and Proton-GE adds extra features and patches on-top of it that can help support more games or get the slightest extra bit of performance out of Proton. Nobara Linux extends this concept to the entire OS, with a stable Fedora base that gets a major update every ~6 months.

        Nobara also consitently outperforms other Linux Distributions and even Windows regularly.

        (This doesn’t mean that you don’t get updates for 6 months, just that major releases, e.g from 39 to 40 happen every ~6 months)

        • @[email protected]
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          111 months ago

          Ooh, I’ll look into that! I was interested in Chimera because of some articles and videos I’ve seen which were praising its similarities to Steam OS. I liked booting up into Steam directly via the controller like it’s just another console, but having the freedom to use it as a PC. And it seemed popular enough that if I hit a snag I could probably find somebody out there who had the same issue and already found and posted a fix. Plus continuing support, which is something I learned is not the case for HoloISO. I guess I was looking for the closest thing to Steam OS which is Arch based, so I thought I had to run an Arch Linux to have a good console-like UI/UX.

      • Asuka
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        211 months ago

        It’s sublime. Pretty much every game you throw at it works perfectly.

        • @[email protected]
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          11 months ago

          Don’t stretch the truth and give them an unrealistic idea.

          There are games that don’t work, Some due to draconian and oppressive DRM or invasive anti-cheat. Some don’t work just because.

          Generally, the ones that work dont just because will eventually become playable. I’ve had a few games I had to back burner for a while, but a few months later became perfectly playable with proton updates and such.

          But on the flipside I have Day 1’d quite a few games, some perfectly (Mostly games with older engines like Starfield), some not so perfectly (Like Cyberpunk 2077), but they were all very playable with patience and understanding.

          @MrVilliam I suggest you hit protondb.com and check the games you commonly play. If they are gold or higher you should be good.

          As for Distro, I’d personally recomend Nobara for gaming on Linux. Its a great experience, smooth, and has pretty much everything you need packaged in the install already, so you don’t have to deal with any tedious bullshit like having to compile something if its not packaged for your distro.

          I dont mean to repeat myself, but patience and understanding is going to be key in successfully getting it going. You’re gonna be learning a completely new OS, and new procedures, from scratch. There will be moments where it may be frustrating trying to figure things out, but you don’t have to be a Tech Savant to get through it, and once you get your head wrapped around it… installing and playing will pretty much be as seamless as you’re used to on windows. Its not perfect by any means, regardless of what anyone says, but its pretty god damn good where its at now, and is rapidly getting better.

    • @[email protected]
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      11 months ago

      Translating into Linux terms, Steam has dropped support for:

      • Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Hardy Heron
      • Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Precise Pangolian
      • @BoastfulDaedra
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        111 months ago

        Which came out more than a decade ago, for those who aren’t keeping score.

      • melroy
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        211 months ago

        That is up to you of course. Luckily I left Microsoft Windows 12 years ago. No more.

        • @[email protected]
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          111 months ago

          For 90% of what I want to do it’s fine. I mainly code in c# so it’s actually better supported on windows then anywhere else.

          Everything else I have WSL setup.

  • @[email protected]
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    1611 months ago

    Nobara Project is another good Fedora based build for those wanting to try Linux that will work relatively smoothly for gaming.

  • melroy
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    711 months ago

    Ow… and Windows 11 also have stronger hardware requirements, making your laptop not usable in the future if Windows 10 is also deprecated. Causing more and more e-waste ;( just because of software from Microsoft.

    • @[email protected]
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      711 months ago

      Steam would be smart to package their steam deck OS as a dual boot installer for PCs. Boot right into steam when you want to play games.

      • @[email protected]
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        711 months ago

        They’re eventually going to release SteamOS onto desktop platforms, but for now you can just install Linux.

        SteamOS has so many deck and handheld specific features that it’s not really a good OS for desktop hardware. HoloISO is something you can install, though, as long as you don’t have a Nvidia card, which is just SteamOS packaged in a way that let’s it run on other hardware

        • @[email protected]
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          311 months ago

          SteamOS has a normal linux desktop, its only in deck mode where everything is deck specific

        • @BoastfulDaedra
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          111 months ago

          I think StreamOS has been around longer than the Steam deck, actually; but I’m sure it’s been tailored somewhat for the hardware.

  • Dizzy Devil Ducky
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    311 months ago

    I, for one, am glad that from a security standpoint that companies like Valve are stopping support and giving patches and stuff to people using such outdated operating systems. If you are forced to use an old OS for work because of software limitations, that’s one thing, but there should be no reason you use an old OS as your daily driver if you ain’t getting any more security updates and patches. I don’t care how long it would take to reset everything and get things set up again, upgrade your damn OS when it’s not being supported anymore!

  • @[email protected]
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    311 months ago

    Microsoft doesn’t even support Windows 7 or 8 anymore, so hardly a surprise. Affected customers can switch to either Windows 10/11 or Linux.

  • @[email protected]
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    111 months ago

    When no longer supporting Ubuntu 16.04: No big deal, just update, duh…

    When no longer supporting Windows 7/8: How dare you!

  • @[email protected]
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    -1411 months ago

    People paid for particular product on a particular platform. That’s what they will get sued over. People made a contract with steam for product that runs on a platform. That’s just contract law.

    Valve are the ones who require tethering to their magical drm cloud - not my copy of ‘Monkey Island’.