My solution for 2024 windows 7 support- A VIRTUAL MACHINE INSTALLATION

[Athens]

If Steam refuses to work on windows 7 I'll simply run windows 10 or 11 in a virtual box and link the steam installation from the virtual box to my Windows 7 install.
No need to cry about it and throw a fit. The argument many windows 7 users have is their PC does everything they want fine, and they like 7.

Windows 7 has been a great unobtrusive OS and I plan to continue using it until Microsoft stops re skinning it and calling it 8-10-11-12 or whatever new OS number they want to staple to it.
Literally the only program I use that has "dropped" windows 7 has been Quickbooks and I simply run that in a VM. The same will work for Steam.
Not worried about any performance impacts. I've tested this before when windows 10 was new and this machine has plenty of power and resources headroom to make any changes not worth the effort.
The Red warning banner is offensive. I'll find a way to remove that and continue on as I have been.

[Crashed]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Defeatist:

Opprinnelig skrevet av boray:

too much effort just too keep your outdated OS lol

virtual machine method wont even work anyways, you have to launch steam in order to play games

We can launch Steam via VM Win 10

Running a newer OS as a VM in an older one is usually only useful for evaluation to implement migration plans or to test new preview versions.

[Defeatist]

Ok I installed Windows 10 once again with the addition of 8 GB more in my system this time making it 16 GB total. My PC is really fast but I keep having crashes while in Win 7 I had none 11 years now with less RAM. It s outrageous that Steam will deny me access to products I paid money for, if I use the proper OS for my system.

[Crashed]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Defeatist:

Ok I installed Windows 10 once again with the addition of 8 GB more in my system this time making it 16 GB total. My PC is really fast but I keep having crashes while in Win 7 I had none 11 years now with less RAM. It s outrageous that Steam will deny me access to products I paid money for, if I use the proper OS for my system.

Have you looked for updated drivers for your components?

[🦊Λℚ𝓤ΛƑΛᗯҜᔕ🦊]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Defeatist:

Ok I installed Windows 10 once again with the addition of 8 GB more in my system this time making it 16 GB total. My PC is really fast but I keep having crashes while in Win 7 I had none 11 years now with less RAM. It s outrageous that Steam will deny me access to products I paid money for, if I use the proper OS for my system.

You said you installed more ram: Did you just buy some random stick of 8GB ram and put it in? If the ram is mismatched or doesn't match then that is pretty much 100% the reason for your crashing. You could test this by shutting down your computer and removing the new ram stick then try windows 7 again. If all of the crashes go away when you do this then you determined the new ram stick isn't compatible with your previous ram stick.

Mismatched ram sometimes works, sometimes doesn't work. I think you may be unlucky and found a set of ram that doesn't work together.

[.EteRnal.]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Insignia:

Report back and let us know how well that worked for you. (Your games are going to run horrible)

Exactly. I don't think you can even do GPU passthrough to VMs on Windows.

[lailaamell]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Start_Running:

Okay... or you just you know run w10. I mean if you have the specs to run w10 in a vm ion w7, you could actually run w10. At this point I really have to wonder when people started treating OSes like bibles.

Windows 7 is their os and savior?

[Satoru]

Opprinnelig skrevet av .EteRnal.:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Insignia:

Report back and let us know how well that worked for you. (Your games are going to run horrible)

Exactly. I don't think you can even do GPU passthrough to VMs on Windows.

You can do it in HyperV on Windows Server. It won’t work on Windows 10/11

[IceFoxX]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Satoru:

Opprinnelig skrevet av .EteRnal.:

Exactly. I don't think you can even do GPU passthrough to VMs on Windows.

You can do it in HyperV on Windows Server. It won’t work on Windows 10/11

Makes perfect sense for the normal user to switch from Windows 7 now to Windows Server 2022 ( or other version ). An OS that is preconfigured for use on servers plus features etc that the normal user also does not need. So who wants to talk the end user for the home PC a Windows Server 2022 (or other version) beautiful, because you can run the latest Windows in a VM with Passthrough. This person should be denied all access to IT in real life.
It is one thing to act negligent and stupid, but it is another thing to act negligent. To persuade other users to accept this dangerous nonsense.

You also try to run with your head through a building instead of around it only because it crosses your way. Would at least explain all the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that you give of you.

[NakiBest]

Won't work. Running in a VM will be too slow to be usable.

[IceFoxX]

Opprinnelig skrevet av NakiBest:

Won't work. Running in a VM will be too slow to be usable.

https://clayfreeman.github.io/gpu-passthrough/
https://github.com/clayfreeman/gpu-passthrough

https://github.com/BigAnteater/KVM-GPU-Passthrough

[butcho]

People who are more experienced in PC related things could install a fresh Win 10 installation on their hardware and apply the Revision OS playbook which removes all the bloatware and unnecessary BS that Microsoft shoves in the users face unasked. I'll use it for several months now, and damn, this was the best thing to happen to my Windows 10 installation. Fast like Win 7, bit more FPS in games because unnecessary processes are removed, no more telemetry and a lot of other stuff, that makes Win 10 a huge annoyance, is gone.

But beware: this modification is not for the average joe because it reaches pretty deep into the Windows ecosystem, removing some parts the normal user relies on, if he even nows that it exists. Windows Defender gets deactivated by default for example, which was not a problem because I'll use another tool for that anyway. Of course you can reactivate nearly all changes if you miss something after the install of the playbook.

Applying windows updates is also a bit more complicated than using a normal Win 10 installation. Yeah, as I mentioned it's for more experienced Windows users.

Personally I'm also running a virtual Revision OS instance on my ProxMox server to test things before I apply them to my main PC. No problems until now and it's running for several months now.

I just thought I mention it in this thread because often people are just not happy with the stock Win 10 installation because, well, it indeed kind of sucks.

And no offence, but please no lectures about what gets removed and why it's bad that the Windows updates are disabled by default, etc. I work in the administration of mainly Windows machines for over 20 years and, yeah, I know what Revision OS does. I just wanted to help. Maybe some folks find this information helpful. ^^

[Defeatist]

Opprinnelig skrevet av 🦊Λℚ𝓤ΛƑΛᗯҜᔕ🦊:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Defeatist:

Ok I installed Windows 10 once again with the addition of 8 GB more in my system this time making it 16 GB total. My PC is really fast but I keep having crashes while in Win 7 I had none 11 years now with less RAM. It s outrageous that Steam will deny me access to products I paid money for, if I use the proper OS for my system.

You said you installed more ram: Did you just buy some random stick of 8GB ram and put it in? If the ram is mismatched or doesn't match then that is pretty much 100% the reason for your crashing. You could test this by shutting down your computer and removing the new ram stick then try windows 7 again. If all of the crashes go away when you do this then you determined the new ram stick isn't compatible with your previous ram stick.

Mismatched ram sometimes works, sometimes doesn't work. I think you may be unlucky and found a set of ram that doesn't work together.

Of course I installed exactly the same RAM with the one I already had (Kingston Hyperx Predator Ddr3 8gb). I know some basics. The crash I mentioned in that post was the only one I had so far. My system had done an automatic repair and since then my 11 year old pc works good. While on Desktop my pc uses now 5 to 7 gb while in Win 7 it was using 3-4 gb. While gaming it was using 7-7,5 gb in Win 7 and now it uses 11-12 gb with the exact same settings (with the exception of DirectX 12). So I conclude that my system was crashing in Win 10 due to lack of RAM. I hope that I solved my Win 10 issue without needing to buy a whole new system so I can use my steam library after Jan 1st too.

[Metal Izanagi]

So...

Instead of just upgrading to an OS that isn't a massive security risk to your entire home network, you're going to RUN THE NEWER OS IN A VM INSTEAD???

Why not just install Windows 10 in that case?! Jesus friggin' christ. I swear we're gonna end up finding out that every single one of the weird Windows 7 worshippers caught COVID-19 early on in the pandemic and the virus has actually rotted their brains out.

[Eagle_of_Fire]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Metal Izanagi:

So...

Instead of just upgrading to an OS that isn't a massive security risk to your entire home network, you're going to RUN THE NEWER OS IN A VM INSTEAD???

Why not just install Windows 10 in that case?! Jesus friggin' christ. I swear we're gonna end up finding out that every single one of the weird Windows 7 worshippers caught COVID-19 early on in the pandemic and the virus has actually rotted their brains out.

Are you even reading what he's writing?

[lailaamell]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Metal Izanagi:

So...

Instead of just upgrading to an OS that isn't a massive security risk to your entire home network, you're going to RUN THE NEWER OS IN A VM INSTEAD???

Why not just install Windows 10 in that case?! Jesus friggin' christ. I swear we're gonna end up finding out that every single one of the weird Windows 7 worshippers caught COVID-19 early on in the pandemic and the virus has actually rotted their brains out.

They dont want win 10 they want 7 and that should be their choice but choices have consuquences