Steam Hates Windows XP and Vista

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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If you are a Windows XP or Vista OS kind of person that games, you will be out of luck when it comes to Steam on January 1, 2019. Official Steam support will stop on that date. As for now, the new Steam Chat will not be supported either. I still have an XP box running here with a 35w Athlon in it, but it is not used for gaming.

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The newest features in Steam rely on an embedded version of Google Chrome, which no longer functions on older versions of Windows. In addition, future versions of Steam will require Windows feature and security updates only present in Windows 7 and above.
 
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This is great news. It'll help purge the internet of a lot of these security hazard ridden plague boxes. What's the percentage of Steam users running XP and Vista these days?
 
There are some reasons why it makes sense to still be running XP on really old hardware - though I'm not sure why anyone would want to run steam on anything that old. Only reason I can think of is with some older games, with EAX hardware sound acceleration, which was removed after XP and you had to emulate. Might be annoying if you run XP on a vintage gaming box and use steam for those games.

As for Vista, anything that can run Vista should easily be able to run Windows 7, and in many cases probably even Windows 10.
 
That's the danger of relying on third party software to run games - even if the games still run fine, you can be locked out of them by updates to the third party software that you might not even want

Edit: Many older games don't work well or at all on newer windows, so I hope valve won't just forcibly break steam on the older OSs, and just let it run unsupported with various features broken.
 
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iNViSiGOD said:
This is great news. It'll help purge the internet of a lot of these security hazard ridden plague boxes.
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Many of the kids these days disable or block windows update so they never get updates anyway, not to mention those who just pirate windows and can never get updates, so even though they have Windows 10, they could still be hazard ridden plague boxes :(

I hate humanity.

iNViSiGOD said:
What's the percentage of Steam users running XP and Vista these days?
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www.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

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Vista didn't even make the list :p
 
I have an old Alienware 17" laptop with XP on it, tried Windows 7 on it but it didn't work right, log in and get a black screen, have to sleep the machine and wake it up for the desktop to show up, and other strange issues.

I put XP back on it and use it when I need to print to my old Kodak 8500 Dye-Sub printer, which only works in XP.
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Loved XP back in the day, not vista but this makes sense, they are outdated and very few if any modern computers have those OS's.
 
at least XP and Vista (and 7) have fully functional non unobtrusive ways to access my computer, control panel and used PROPER start menu (unlike 8-8.1-10) which are fucking horrid in the way to access these (if at all).

I still use classcshell in windows xp mode (wicked easy to use start menu etc) but as far as the virus filled boxes, mehh, it is not like MSFT has really went out of their way to "secure" things, nor have they hammered those who get certification to ensure compliance with DX versions or IRQ usage rules.

was/is only a matter of time before the "world moves on" at least xp or vista based machines (for whatever reason) still have the ability to access things like printers or a total offline usage scenario (media machine, older games that play very poorly if at all on "modern" OS).

I wonder if steam will still "turn on" in a fully offline method, even if XP or Vista is in use, likely they will, so all is not lost, till you try to go online ^.^..pull the RJ45 cable never have to worry about it getting or giving disease to the world LOL
 
I use an xp laptop when out of the house. It's also occasionally put to use when downloading steam games on fibre internet. Looks like no longer..
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Many of the kids these days disable or block windows update so they never get updates anyway, not to mention those who just pirate windows and can never get updates, so even though they have Windows 10, they could still be hazard ridden plague boxes :(

I hate humanity.



www.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

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Vista didn't even make the list :p
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I find it odd and hilarious that Windows XP is still 2x more used than the most popular Linux.
 
trentchau said:
I find it odd and hilarious that Windows XP is still 2x more used than the most popular Linux.
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Well, this is for games only.

I personally use Linux for almost everything at home, but I dual boot to Windows 10 for games (and only for games) so I would show up as a tick in the Win10 box on this one.

Don't take this as representative of overall usage. Lots of people who run Linux just don't play games, or do so on other platforms. While Linux does lots of things very well, for a combination of reasons the gaming experience just isn't there yet.
 
GotNoRice said:
There are some reasons why it makes sense to still be running XP on really old hardware - though I'm not sure why anyone would want to run steam on anything that old. Only reason I can think of is with some older games, with EAX hardware sound acceleration, which was removed after XP and you had to emulate. Might be annoying if you run XP on a vintage gaming box and use steam for those games.

As for Vista, anything that can run Vista should easily be able to run Windows 7, and in many cases probably even Windows 10.
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EAX works fine, just not through Directsound, which no longer interacts with audio drivers. That's why Creative made an EAX to OpenAL wrapper to restore the lost functionality. All my EAX titles are working fine on Win10.

Secondly, I note that older versions of the Steam client should continue to work for a short time, so you can still access your library.
 
gamerk2 said:
EAX works fine, just not through Directsound, which no longer interacts with audio drivers. That's why Creative made an EAX to OpenAL wrapper to restore the lost functionality. All my EAX titles are working fine on Win10.
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I never claimed that it didn't work, only that the hardware sound acceleration was removed after XP and that you had to emulate it (Alchemy), but thanks for rewording it for me? My post was talking about vintage gaming computers.

gamerk2 said:
Secondly, I note that older versions of the Steam client should continue to work for a short time, so you can still access your library.
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Does it really matter if it still works for a "short time"? Then what?
 
Meeho said:
And then what? "Thank you for your money, now you can fuck off."?
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Hey you wanna keep xp all power to you. Its probably the least unsecure windows on the internet. I wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole with the way things are these days. As I said I respect everyone's decision who wants to run it. I am not sure why people get mad when they refuse to upgrade the OS and want endless support knowing very well upfront that its nearly impossible for a company to maintain support for an aging OS making their software vulnerable for all. I am fairly certain they have waited long enough and given people every chance to move to new OS.
 
NKD said:
Hey you wanna keep xp all power to you. Its probably the least unsecure windows on the internet. I wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole with the way things are these days. As I said I respect everyone's decision who wants to run it. I am not sure why people get mad when they refuse to upgrade the OS and want endless support knowing very well upfront that its nearly impossible for a company to maintain support for an aging OS making their software vulnerable for all. I am fairly certain they have waited long enough and given people every chance to move to new OS.
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I don't care for endless support or going online. I want to be able to play my single player games when I buy them and ten years later and a hundred years after that if I want to. That's why I don't use Steam unless it is the only option. It's shit compared to GOG precisely because of issues like these. I don't like being someone's little pay bitch that could lose what I paid for on someone's whim.

If Steam continues to work properly and give you access to games but just doesn't offer further support, that's fine. It's still a bad service, but at least not complete shit
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Well, this is for games only.

I personally use Linux for almost everything at home, but I dual boot to Windows 10 for games (and only for games) so I would show up as a tick in the Win10 box on this one.

Don't take this as representative of overall usage. Lots of people who run Linux just don't play games, or do so on other platforms. While Linux does lots of things very well, for a combination of reasons the gaming experience just isn't there yet.
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The issue of such low linux usage is that it is still ignored for the most part by devs. Drive performance isn't the big issue anymore. It is more the fact that the Devs don't want to innovate and change their ways.

Personally I have win10 on my new Lenovo laptop but I did a dual boot with Ubuntu Studio as soon as I got it. I thought I would want to do some gaming on it but I always have some productive project ongoing so I'm always in Linux.
 
Dr. Righteous said:
The issue of such low linux usage is that it is still ignored for the most part by devs. Drive performance isn't the big issue anymore. It is more the fact that the Devs don't want to innovate and change their ways.
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Not so much ignored, the question is market share. Desktop Linux users are generally overrepresented in places like this because of the more technical nature of the population. Desktop Linux gaming has certainly improved especially with the arrival of Steam support five years ago but Windows has gotten better as well, there's more games than ever coming to Windows. If you are a PC gamer Windows is a no-brainer from the perspective that virtually all PC games come to Windows and thus the vicious cycle of dev support versus market share continues.
 
Meeho said:
I don't care for endless support or going online. I want to be able to play my single player games when I buy them and ten years later and a hundred years after that if I want to. That's why I don't use Steam unless it is the only option. It's shit compared to GOG precisely because of issues like these. I don't like being someone's little pay bitch that could lose what I paid for on someone's whim.

If Steam continues to work properly and give you access to games but just doesn't offer further support, that's fine. It's still a bad service, but at least not complete shit
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couldn't you just leave steam in off-line mode?. As long as you didnt update it, you could potentially leave it that way forever
 
cptnjarhead said:
couldn't you just leave steam in off-line mode?. As long as you didnt update it, you could potentially leave it that way forever
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Is this confirmed? Can offline mode be used indefinitely?

But, even if it could, would you need to have all the games installed in order to be able to play them later? What about OS reinstalls?
 
Meeho I would create xp install disk with Steam app, using slipstream. Then you can reinstall anytime.
 
This means that after that date the Steam Client will no longer run on those versions of Windows
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hmm, so is it a already built in time bomb.. that come jan 1 2019 the software will not even run.. or is it at that date.. when trying to connect to steam, the servers will see the old OS and not allow it to connect?

Hopefully it will be that the software starts, but then simply doesnt connect and goes into offline mode, allowing those using it to at least be able to play their existing games.


cant say i am a fan of such a cut off

will be interesting
 
Meeho said:
I don't care for endless support or going online. I want to be able to play my single player games when I buy them and ten years later and a hundred years after that if I want to.
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If they're smaller indie games, you're probably safe. Otherwise, prepare to be fucked.
 
This is coming to Windows 7 and then we will hear the crying. XP and Vista not so much.
 
Vader1975 said:
This is coming to Windows 7 and then we will hear the crying.
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I wouldn't expect 7 support to be dropped by major desktop software providers for at least 5 to 6 years. Assuming Windows 7 ends in January 2020, which I suspect will be the case for consumers and most businesses without an extended support contract, support for 7 will degrade but slowly for a while after 2020. This is just how it's always tended to work.
 
Vader1975 said:
This is coming to Windows 7 and then we will hear the crying. XP and Vista not so much.
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Not happening while 7 and 8.1 still have such a big install base. Think 2025 and beyond, unless MS either builds a proper successor to 7 in the meantime, or just pulls their head out and makes some concessions to all the user-hostile shit in 10 - telemetry opt out, control over updates, separating security updates from being lumped in with useless mobile oriented "features", ability to remove all the preinstalled crapware without temporary hacks, standardizing the UI, etc.
 
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Dr. Righteous said:
The issue of such low linux usage is that it is still ignored for the most part by devs. Drive performance isn't the big issue anymore. It is more the fact that the Devs don't want to innovate and change their ways.

Personally I have win10 on my new Lenovo laptop but I did a dual boot with Ubuntu Studio as soon as I got it. I thought I would want to do some gaming on it but I always have some productive project ongoing so I'm always in Linux.
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It's only going to get worse with Apple deprecating OpenGL in MacOS.

I'm fairly certain - for instance - that the only reason a Linux version of Civilization V and VI exist is because Aspyr made a port for the Mac, and once the Mac OpenGL based version was created, most of the work needed to make a Linux version was already done.

I've pretty much given up when it comes to ever gaming under Linux at this point. It's certainly possible, but when the entrenched interests and status quo is so strong that not even Valve can force it through despite trying as hard as they did, I hold little hope for it actually happening.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I've pretty much given up when it comes to ever gaming under Linux at this point. It's certainly possible, but when the entrenched interests and status quo is so strong that not even Valve can force it through despite trying as hard as they did, I hold little hope for it actually happening.
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With the market share Linux has, it's going to take some type of subsidization to get more devs creating Linux versions, or we go to cloud gaming and then it doesn't matter.
 
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