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

ThumpieBunnyEve if you can play "new" games on steam that get updates, i need help as every new game i have show this message
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i dont have the latest version of steam but i want to stop this message showing and play

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Oh wait nevermind, this does not work on Other games
only from Valve games that get updates

check your personal messages here on the sevenforums scout, and we'll see what we can work out together.

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I just learned about this, making upgrade from 7, for steam, to 10/11 impossible for current 7 users who Must upgrade to keep using steam on their sys...
Microsoft Kills Free Windows 7 to Windows 11 Upgrade Option | PCMag
short of it is, microsoft won't let you upgrade from 7 to -anything- any more.

Clearly they - H A T E - the power and freedom they offered 7 users, even though the 7-disk itself came with malware-and-spyware, it wasn't Nearly as much of it as they wanted to inject for control over their revenue.

Anytime there is a push -this- hard to change its because the SUS corporate reason has yet to be revealed.

In this case its likely subscription os model for 12, and im sure with all the licencing agreements for 10/11, that the subscription model will drag in the 10 and 11 users like chained slaves to 12. I just dread to think softwares and websites will get a 'break' or even 'paid' to do things like prevent windows7 users from viewing or doing transactions under the guise of "security" concerns. Losing steam, is a big one, but its just the hard front edge of the storm.

Atlas OS, and Linux, is the only super-user way forward.

@ThumpieBunnyEve
Forget about the game problem i have with "garry's mod"
I got a problem for the steam version i have for windows 8.1, it only works for windows 7 but for windows 8 or 8.1 it shows this gray screen when opening the app
From my research they found a fix for linux users but for windows 8.1 i am not sure

Hopefully you have a fix for this

i don't have test versions of win8.# to experiment with, but my guess is that is the chromium problem, with it being out of date and such, that steam warned would be the case when support drops for win 7/8 in 2024.
The http elements of that window are not loading. can you directly run a game if you double click a link to a game from your desktop?

I advise also blocking ports related to steam, which i mention up at the beginning of the OP. this way if things request an update from the steam network or try to fetch an update, it just times out and no downloads happen unbenounced to you, sneakily waiting till you next startup steam again. If you don't block the ports, steam does and will, try to fetch the updates to the steam client and apply them on next restart of steam.

Im not saying block all the downloads for the games. JUST and only the sites related to the steam client software updates. One of my early posts in this thread mention a bunch of sites to block using your c:/windows/system32/drivers/etc/hosts file. I haven't done great at narrowing the list honestly. not all of what i posted needs to be blocked, but i don't know which ones relate to just the steam client updating. so i blanket-blocked a bunch and haven't had an update come through since march 24'th 2023.

The curious thing is that Steam on Windows 7 still works properly for me, and even receives updates.
I am subscribed to the "Steam Beta Update" program, and beta updates come regularly, I don't know now if the final version has been locked, however, the Beta versions still seem to work for Windows 7.
I wouldn't be surprised if Valve made all this falsehood to scare users to upgrade to windows 10/11.

checking in on that. hi Scoob!
Yes despite the Scare-Tactics steam used, Steam-Client is working for me too on the latest version. FOR NOW.

I have however included the no-update lines in my steam config file. Valve decided in "Official posts" to indicate they would do nothing beyond 'stop making updates for windows 7" this is in line with XP, and Vista EoL, but they sure didn't do anything to ease the nerves of all those whom they made panic with that countdown and its wording... The scare seemed quite deliberate as they could have altered it at any time to be a link rather then a warning banner that "Steam will stop working on windows 7 in # days". Valve, is what stopped working on windows 7 .... in their Dev office. not Steam.

Im quite sick of the scare-ware, Out of Support, does not mean Unsafe, or Does Not Work.

Anyway for now, I've got the December 19'st version of steam, and i made a backup of it on wayback machine ( Wayback Machine )

As for that config file i mentioned, C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steam.cfg has the line
BootStrapperInhibitAll=enable

which actually disables steam (Client) updates. my windows 7 has the SHA or whatever its called, KB update, which i installed for NoMansSky quite a long time ago.

Hopefully all will continue to operate indefinitely. But if Steam client for some reason changes communication security, or our .acf keys have to update to, i don't know, a 512 bit key or something silly like that... Then access could still fall into "offline mode only". For -now- Friends List works. And that is -usually- the first thing to stop working when they dick about with updates.

Its why i keep various versions of steam backed up on my pc, so i have plenty i can go back to and muck with, hoping there remains some legacy support some where to fall back on. We will see how it goes when everyone is forced into windows12-subscriptions automatically through "updates". "Updates" are the new gen swear words.

The real hell, will begin when individual game developers, comfortable with Valves abandonment of 7, start updating their own Games to exclusively remove support for windows 7. Then your at the mercy of writing each dev with a game you play, to ask them to please put up a "last known working beta" of that game so you can opt in and continue playing. (Unless you live in Offline mode for the rest of time, in which updates don't matter)

I've a 16TB hdd with copies of all my installed game folders. And there is some janky stuff you can do, to trick Online mode steam into not updating games.
Firstly is alter ALL your appmanifest_#####.acf files (the ones for games), (yours are likely in C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\\steamapps\ ) changing
"AutoUpdateBehavior" "#"
to
"AutoUpdateBehavior" "1"

This will set them all to "Update on launch" instead of trying to fetch updates regularly. Then once you launch a game, you can wait till the download is complete, and copy paste in your game into the folder from your backup drive. the appmanafest file will have its update, but your game folder ocntent won't actually be updated. .... pretty wasteful measure really.. but its 'a way' to preserve your current working game version when said game stops running thanks to 'forced updates'.

I used notepad++ to set all the variables mentioned above, it was tedious... I've 1238 games! But there are some other apps like FAR which can edit all the files at once (If you set the setting to allow editing of all files in its settings, as its kinda designed for only 1 file type by default) FAR - Find And Replace download | SourceForge.net
you'll need to poke at it a little as im not writing a tutorial for it. I just wish i had learned about FAR before using notepad++ to waste my time doing the same X_X;


anyway heres a great reference https://blog.lightwo.net/steam-client-downgrades-survival-kit.html
lightwo made a great survival guide bringing a lot of data together.
great guy, annnd a linux user.

He recommends if you _MUST_ upgrade away from win7, its in your best interest to migrate over to Linux, and after long discussion,

i agree. Though there is Atlas OS as an alternative ( AtlasOS - An optimized modification of Windows, designed for gamers. ) its still a windows 11, which requires a windows 11 purchase. And i really don't want to give M$ any more money. They do all the wrong things with it. A note to other readers, Windows 7/8 is outside the Upgrade window now, so you cant get a 'free upgrade' from a 7/8 os any more.

And really you probably shouldn't. upgrading from one os to another seldom ever went well even from xp to 7. it was always always more safe to just get your key and reformat rather then actually 'upgrade'. Upgrading bricked more devices then i care to fetch info on. My tablet is one of them.

according to Lightwo, put linux on stuff. Linux Mint is a good distro for windows users, its updated less often then Ubuntu, as Ubuntu is updated so often it can feel unstable. Then use wine or other win-emulator for your windows 7/8/10/Atlas OS instillation's going forward this is truly the only way to maintain the best stability and resist the erosion of ownership that companies are obsessed over.

Anyway, anyone who visits here, feel free to ask (on topic) questions about how to set up or what to do. We all just have each other now to rely on. Guru's lead the way!

Yes it has to be said that valve played quite dirty this time, giving a false end of support apparently, for now yes, the latest builds seem to work properly even on Windows 7 and 8.1, do any of you happen to know if it is possible to remove the red writing "steam will no longer work with windows 7 in 0 days", besides making me laugh XD it also annoys.

I'm out of town for 3 h. More, but your answer is yes. Ill teach how when home, its a start peramiter fir steam. -pretendos-w10. Or somthimng like that, google it, ill answer more precicely clearly when I get home

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ok so my shortcut to launch steam without the banner, is

Code:

%steamRoot%\Steam\Steam.exe -console -pretendeol-w10

-pretendeol-w10 causes steam to launch pretending its End Of Life is for windows 10, which at this time, is not a set var for steam client. they planned to introduce a var for that, some time nearer to oct. 2025.

I tried starting steam this way and the annoying banner disappeared, thank you!

ScoobyDoo2004 said:

The curious thing is that Steam on Windows 7 still works properly for me, and even receives updates.

It eventually won't, and it's not a scare tactic. I've already mentioned this before. It's due to Steam using Chromium code for their crap interface. Spoticrap (Spotify) does the same thing and God only knows what other lazy Devs do as well. So Google is in fact calling the shots on what OS YOU can use with their code. No conspiracy theory or tactics involved. It's like the Rockefeller's and the steel tycoons and whatnot of the industrial revolution...

Eventually you simply won't be able to run Steam on Windows 7. And a modern day browser for that matter...

I have tested the aforementioned Atlas OS scripts talked about in this thread with Windows 10 Pro in a virtual machine using VMware Workstation Player and I was very pleasantly surprised. Not only with its capabilities and how the code is constructed, but at getting rid of the sure volume of CRAP from Windows 10! I ran a network sniffer on the VMware NIC (Network InterfaceController) while I installed Winblows 10 and there was just a torrent of telemetry poring out of the network while installing and using Winblows 10 prior to running the Atlas 10 playbook install mechanism. Of course I ran everything through a VPN. After Atlas OS did its clean up job and I rebooted, the telemetry was gone! Zero, zilch, it was just ^&%!@* gone! Not only that, but all that Ad crap and whatnot in the start menu was gone as well and now gives room for your own damn stuff to be placed in the start menu.

Atlas OS does deactivate Windows updates because an update will just reinstate all that crap right back again (total BS!), but I'm actually a Windows/PC user that doesn't use updates unless it's needed for hardware or software. Besides, when you do install Atlas OS it'll make sure you do have the latest updates. So there's that. Atlas OS does disable System Restore for what ever odd reason. But you can go into System Protection and turn it right back on. I personally like having System Restore as a last ditch effort to help fix a real wrench in the gears that I just can't figure out. It's not often I use it, but on a very rare occasion it's saved me like some bearded dude on a mountain top... Other than that, I do make full 1:1 disk clones, but since those are month apart I'd rather try a system restore first.

Atlas OS is for a NEW install of Winblows 10. Don't use it with a current install. And you will need a Winblows 10 license key. There is no hack ISO crap and whatnot here. It's certainly not for everyone, but for this user it's the best thing ever in my opinion. I absolutely REFUSE to use Winblows 10 in its current state. And I have no plans on using 11 anytime soon either. I'm waiting to see how bad 12 will be... LOL! I mean, come on! A MacOS look? Da faq?! At this point Microsoft isn't even trying to suck. They ARE the suck! Damn shame, too. In my opinion XP was a fine OS. It just needed code improvements. But in company like fashion they add crap on top of core code and sell it as a product.

Winblows 10 was designed like a freaking tablet OS and not a PC OS and I can't quite understand that marketing decision. If they (Microsoft) want to go that route, then do I dare say make two OSs? One for PCs and one for the smart device crap? I realize this would be a real PITA, but hey! As a decades long PC user I feel the latest incarnations of the Window OS since 8 has gone down hill bad. And I'm sure as hell not the only one that has this opinion. I've see many people reach my website from Google using the search terms: "why is Windows 10 a piece of shit." I have an old running topic at my website about all the Window 10 suckery. I haven't updated that topic now in sometime though. And it appears Google may be suppressing my search engine results because I have not seen a Google hit to that topic in a long time. Probably because the Bastards are filtering results to show more of Reddit than traditional forums like mine and this website. You Google anything anymore and I'll bet you a box of fine cigars that 90% of the time your first three results will be some Reddit post. That's not a coincidence, it's on purpose and done for a reason. Google owns the search engine and they can show what ever results they so desire. And by this they own the Internet because they can make or break your website. Just another reason why I use Matomo for analytics and refuse to use Google fonts on my website. And they make or break a browser too with web Dev idiots using things like Google Web Components and whatnot which don't work too will in niche alternative browsers like Pale Moon. Some websites are coded so bad you actually have to use Chrome. The website functionality simply wouldn't work in Firefox. Only Chrome. That's absolutely ridiculous.

Anyway, there's a lot, and I mean a lot of bullshit shenanigans going around these days. My personal picks are of the following: big league tech companies, big Pharma, rich punks, politicians and the media companies. All collude with one another to control us all in one facet or another. It's not even about money anymore at this point. We're far and away from that. For some reason all bipedal chimps want money, power and control. It's like built into our BS DNA. And their geneticists know it, too! The sick bastards are right now hard at work trying to figure out how to make a DNA weapon that can eradicate certain people, races, et cetera. That's how far and away this grotesque malevolent crap is. You wonder why the world is such a shithole. Just ask George Carlin. Truth is stranger than fiction and art does have an uncanny ability to imitate reality.

Anyway, I yield back the balance of my time.