As of January 1, 2024, Steam will no longer support Windows 7, 8, or 8.1

In addition to correcting issues and adding new features, Valve has issued a new version for the Steam Beta Client. This update also includes an announcement that Steam will no longer provide support for Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 beginning on January 1, 2024. The official end of support for Windows 7 occurred on January 13, 2015, however Microsoft chose to extend it until January 14, 2020. Despite this decision, the operating system continued to get updates until January 10, 2023. On the other side, Microsoft stopped releasing updates for Windows 8 as of the 14th of January in 2016, when it was succeeded by Windows 8.1, which did not enjoy an extended support period like Windows 7 did.

The support for Windows 8.1 was terminated on January 9, 2018, while support for its upgrades was terminated on January 10, 2018, along with support for Windows 7.  The end of extended support for Windows 10 has been pushed back to October 14, 2025, which means that users of Windows 10 do not need to update to Windows 10 as quickly as possible. Windows 10, which was released in 2015, is still the operating system that has the most users. In February of 2017, Steam reached a nearly 65 percent utilization rate. Its successor, Windows 11, is used by more than 33 percent of Steam’s user base.

Valve has made the decision that Windows 7, Windows 7 64 bits, and Windows 8.1 are no longer compatible with their platform because these three versions of Windows do not even add up to 2% of the total number of Steam users. Because of this, Valve made the decision to take the measure of making them incompatible with their platform.

Another reason for this is because earlier versions of Windows are no longer compatible with Steam’s newest features, which are dependent on an embedded version of Google Chrome. This version of Chrome is no longer supported by previous versions of Windows. In addition, upcoming editions of Steam will be dependent on Windows features and safety upgrades that are only available in Windows 10 and later operating systems.