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Microsoft stopped officially supporting Windows 7 for regular users in 2020 and Windows 8.1 support ended in 2023. At best, you've had a year to update to a newer version of Windows. At worst, you've had four years. You should have moved to Windows 10 or Windows 11 by now if you are online at all with those operating systems. Years of no security updates is bad enough, but this week it just got worse.
Valve officially ended support for Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 on January 1, 2024. This means that as of right now, those running Steam on the older operating systems are doing so on borrowed time. On their support site, Valve says that they "expect the Steam client and games on these older operating systems to continue running for some time without updates after January 1st, 2024, but we are unable to guarantee continued functionality after that date."
Valve notes that it's making these changes now because there are "core features in Steam (that) rely on an embedded version of Google Chrome." This embedded version of Chrome "no longer functions on older versions of Windows." Upcoming Steam updates will "require Windows feature and security updates only present in Windows 10 and above."
We strongly encourage all Windows 7/8/8.1 users to update sooner rather than later. Microsoft ended security updates and technical support for Windows 7 in January 2020 and for Windows 8.1 in January 2023. Computers running these operating systems, when connected to the internet, are susceptible to new malware and other exploits which will not be patched. That malware can cause your PC, Steam and games to perform poorly or crash. That malware can also be used to steal the credentials for your Steam account or other services.
