Steam ends support for Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 on January 1, 2024

AGGRAMENTALITY FUNDA MENTALS? The only Multi Player anything these days hasn't been Steam Driven to begin with but Chess online or AI opponents? They have a background noise making it sound like you are playing before a live gathering in a tournament but how you can exit and come back hours later and nothing has changed? MEMORY! not PC Memory but Android App memory! No Steam found there!

The further things go along the more you have to rely on the PlayStation platform over the PC 1st shooter type of gaming for the Single Player. I've been running into this just trying to find a way to get logged into Steam on the latest Windows let alone trying to keep things going on both 7 and 10 generally to follow the tech as well as OS trends. As for Steam or other gaming platforms dependent on creation and maintaining online accounts in order to run games that were supposed installed locally on your system? but found in an online Library list? when the engine goes down you find yourself locked out of the games that are found not to be "Stand Alone" afterall despite the Offline Mode?

Likewise with a number of the old Legacy titles by various manufacturers due to the small capacities of hard drives let alone OS drives going back to the mid to late 90s and early 2000s for example most game installers saw a limited amount of files and folders unpacked onto the drive where the softwares were to be installed "C"unless seeing the option for custom installs and you kept the software disk in the drive following the prior 5.25" onto 3 1/2" floppy days!
Afterall the first real home user OS started off with ROM cartridges and tape drives before the desktop and updated self operated laptops replaced the early notebooks! I found that out after one company dumped some 70 Epson HX-20 Museum Pieces even at the time on the school I was at and asked to go through them to see which ones could be handed out to students in good working order? Then following the following 3.0, 3.1 days MS starting adding solitaire card games into each newer version as the gaming industry grew which lead to the internet having been opened up for commercial and private interests!

The concepts of having individual online accounts stems from opening up Cloud space in order to market games and other softwares then starting to see large capacity requirements in order to meet the needs of the many? in a sense Graphics in your favorite single and/or online Multiple Player game designs take up more space!
And just as you look at each new ad for some new mobile service the marketing of newer games with more intense game designs reflects on more involved minimum requirements. You have to get the new ____ in order to get the new 5G, 10G VPN for mobile platforms. In retrospect for the PC platform which continues to see more involved program designs you then are expected to move forward with both hardware and software namely OS requirements that can support the more demanding game designs is being seen with Steam. Likewise for each gaming platform to grow and expand that means something has to go!

The attached image here shows the list of games with several HL2 Steam Driven Developers mods also run on a few Insider Builds in years past. The number of those has shrunk down lacking anything Steam driven for the latest version with 7 soon to face this as well.

The Steam titles plus Developer mods for Half Life 2 with some almost good enough to have seen a Half Life 3 and 4 being the larger multi levels mods are on 10 as well as having been put on multiple versions of 7 originally running the Insider followed by the 32bit Home edition and onto the Pro x64 and Ultimate x64 later 10 Pro x64 builds followed the 8 builds looked over but skipped 8 and 8.1 entirely back then!

The dropping of 7 however doesn't come as any big surprise since Vista already came and went. Disabling the constant immediate check for updates when Steam is enabled to start up with 7 has to go while still remains in 10. Following Vista we hear you! 7 still seems to remain the "GAMER'S CHOICE" having come out of the "BLOATED OS" rep the previous version earned with that Light and Fluffy faster performance feeling 7 gives you! And believe it or not after now having examined the following three versions it will still be sad seeing Steam drop 7 entirely!

In general, "Dropping support" needs to stop. Having to buy or change OS'es, just to keep using/playing what you've already paid for.... They say you should backup what you love. What is the point of doing any sort of backup and recovery, or developing fancy ghosting options to viral protect and restore a whole system, if were just forced off it faster and faster.

who controls how fast the need to drop an os occurs? If it's the company that makes that OS? we are in big trouble! Inflation in the last decade has increasted the price of everything almost 300%, and now they want us to change OS every 4 years? Losing capability we paid for. Oh the promise everything will work is there sure. until its time to hold some one accountable such as the company that is feeding you that line of bull.

None of your software works on that 64 bit system, sorry! I wonder if 128 bit processing will be the -next- gimic to push everyone to a new os. Not that anything ever needs a full 64 bit instruction space, But if they go there, well we will -have to- follow as the hype machine steam rolls ever forward.

At least with a linuix lowest level, you won't -have to- change everything. just whatever image of windows/wine VM you'd have to swap between on it. Maintaining stability is quickly becoming impossible. Weve moved past the golden age of computers its now the dark age of corperate interest, shilling For corporate interest. And the restriction of user control, so the illusion of control can be sold back to you in teeny tiny avenues that guarantee advertisement and data mining done at/to you.

There is more licencing agreements then there is software to attach them to.

The PC wizardry age is over. Its now:
https://y.yarn.co/219beae2-ced6-43a5...8064b_text.gif
or nothing for you.



And the shillers facetiously ask us, why we would want to preserve the capability and control of our 'antiquated' win7 systems.
as a 7 user, i enjoy a life without an licencing agreed ad thrust in my face on every left-click. It took tweaking to do so, and i don't want to sacrifice that QoL experience.

When steam stops letting win7 users log in. Ill consider a steam deck. but Not, a win10 os. as that is in the same EOL boat, by jan 2025. and 25% of my present lib' won't play on win11 at all.
If getting with the times, means a far more interrupted and annoying ad and licencing-agreement focused existence with no right to control or filter?...
you know that adage about jumping off a bridge??
it needs modification, "If everyone else was lining up for castration, would you do it too?"
companies have crossed lines drawn in the sand and are literally punishing their user base for their loyalty.
Piracy will see new hights like never before.

and along the way? IF i have to change os, im going with a VM version of AtlasOS.net on linuix. and taking all the Corporate, out of Microsoft OS'es once and for all.

TLDR: windows super-users should be using AtlasOS.net going forward.

YES THIS! unknown_scout91 ! You! scout91 r a HERO!
I haven't even Tied your method yet, but from what i can see, this is what we need!
THANK YOU for putting this out there for us! omfg TY you wizard!

I currently have been daily enduring steam friend chat problem. making excuses for it, and trying to use steam protocol -around- the problem.
i am -still- using steam march 24'th just before the possible 1/1/2024 nag/kill code rumors were confirmed.
this very day, i was planning on duping my C: and then finally letting steam update one more time, so I'd get files that might at least let me use my friend list that i could poke through.
(as well as peek and check to see for myself if there is in fact kill-code in the current steam for win7. instead of just believing the redditers propaganda.)
I may still follow my action, but then im going to do yours after. once i have at least 3 copies of steam-client to rely on through the win7 steamocolypse.

scout91 Knight! <3 <3

Ill start poking at these options Saturday! tonight i have a 7d2d server party to host. on... you guessed it Windows7! and it runs beautifully!


EDIT:

my Steam client: Win7 64bit
Version: 7.94.58.87
Build Time: Fri Mar 24 13:11:50 2023 EST
Packaged: Mar 24 2023, at 10:12:43 PDT
Steam package version: 1679680416
Steam API: v020

annnnd files i used from what you offered above:
steam.cfg
and
QuickPatcher_Patch_v1.2.0.zip

result, Success! on 2 different 7 machines! an i7, and an amd!

On chrome & google::
if you just freeze your present instillation of chrome, all it does is warn you its out of date & _Not_ let you install new (or older) versions of plugins for it. I've been running on google portable apps for years, just so my other plugins im happy with don't slip out of date or get expunged, or google changes in such a way as to pander to ad sites allowing them through some back door, or circumvent the hosts-file to connect to sites or downloads i don't want them to. Sooo if i can keep running the softwares without updating. I'd assume the same would be true for not Updating-Steam.

Unknown_scout91 in an above post details how to get the 2023/1/1 (or thereabouts) version of steam and isolate it from accessing any updates, much the same as a chrome-portable app. Mine is a bit after that point in history, but still safe so far as i can see.

Version: 7.94.58.87Build Time: Fri Mar 24 13:11:50 2023

I run the steam exe shortcut with this: "C:\Games\utilities\Steam\Steam.exe" -console -nofriendsui -nochatui -noverifyfiles -nobootstrapupdate -skipinitialbootstrap -norepairfiles -overridepackageurl

it is the version that was ongoing -at- the time the media leaked announcements about Steams decision to end support for win7 users. So to my understanding, the very -next- release was going to include a nagging reminder (and maybe hidden kill code?) that support would terminate 2024-1-1. I've not ever seen the nag reminder myself. just in other peoples videos.

So i did a C: backup immediately, and snipped and cut myself that 'state' of the steamClientBrowser. I think this 'state' of it has more bug fixes then the one scout91 points us to. I don't know if i can share it though because its state, likely has a lot of my own credential files involved, even if i do skip the steamapps and workshop folders. Still if you can FIND a march 24'th 2023 version of steam, i recommend going with that. (Or some one can maybe teach ME how to depersonalize my 7.94.58.87 Version? Then i could make it public-accessible.)

BUT! I really want to say, That updater for the friends list scout91 re-posted, DID work for my steam friends version! WOO HOO! (Credit to lighttwo & TiberiumFusion)

@Unknown scout91
You could stream-line that video of yours a bunch more succinctly. perhaps script it out to read as you address key points for yourself so you keep on track and don't run-over so many small inconsistencies.
I still downloaded a copy to my sys anyway just to help keep it alive in case youtube policy gets MORE stupid.