A couple of questions about Windows 7 in 2024.

[dias_flac_0g]

So it's been made clear that Steam will no longer support Windows 7 after Jan 2024.

But what exactly does this mean?

Does it mean that Steam simply won't get anymore updates? But we can still play our games in the "offline" mode?

Or does it literally mean that once Jan 2024 comes all of a sudden we wont be able to launch Steam at all and get an error message even while being offline? Currently the way Steam works is if we don't have an internet connection it will simply ask us if we want to use "offline" mode to play our games.

I did some googling but can't seem to find an answer to my specific question. All I find are people complaining (about the end of support) or the typical "Just upgrade to windows 10/11) people telling them to upgrade.

and yes before you anyone here tells me to upgrade, my main PC is a modern gaming rig with Windows 11.

I'm simply asking because I am using my old PC (8700k) as a Windows 7 PC for legacy games and just for the fun of it.

I recently formatted it and installed a clean copy of 7 of it with all the updates. So I would like to add some of my old Steam games on it.

Helpful comments will be greatly appreciated.

[MonkehMaster]

Originally posted by 🦊Λℚ𝓤ΛƑΛᗯҜᔕ🦊:

Originally posted by Steven Seagull:

Since March 2019, Win7 requires SSE2 as well. If you didn't turn off Windows Update.
The standard Windows 11 booted for me even with 512MB RAM. It used the page file. Make sure you have an SSD.

Now I know you're just trolling us. No one would use Windows 10 with 4GB of ram or even 512 MB. That's just stupid. Windows 10 needs at least 2~2.5 GB just for background processes and then they wouldn't be able to do anything with the computer. No games. No web browsing.

I think that the absolute minimum for a Windows 10 computer to actually use it as an actual computer (browsing, gaming) should be 8GB of system ram to even consider installing it.

wrong, i have ran win 10 and 11 on systems (old laptops so far) with as little as 1GB ram, as for lower im almost sure it will run, likely slow but thats doesnt change the fact that it works.

all you do is bypass (registry) all hardware requirements on either OS (10/11) and it installs and runs just fine.

also, people can run whatever OS they want on the internet, despite your opinion on the matter, i ran win 7 on the internet for the whole 3 years after microsoft dropped support and i had zero issues, lets not forget ESU brings win 7 only about year behind (currently 9 months) on "security" updates as well.

i wont even mention all the users who likely turned off windows updates and had been running out of date for years or a decade, yet had no issues (very common thing casual and higher experienced users would do back in the days, more experienced would pick and choose, then set to ignore others, others just disable windows update).

but anywho, i have ran all the older OS's on the internet long after support, people arent going just magically have security risks and most doing anything like this likely know exactly what they are doing and likely not doing it on their main pc anyway.

that all being said, why are you telling people they are trolling, when not only people have told you what can be done, while also having info, vids/ect.. across the internet and knowing you can easily test it out yourself very easily by download both the iso's from microsoft, using rufus to make it bootable on a usb flash drive and installing it on various pc's/laptops of varying hardware, while bypassing the hardware requirements).

[Steven Seagull]

Originally posted by Vitdom:

Originally posted by Steven Seagull:

Since March 2019, Win7 requires SSE2 as well. If you didn't turn off Windows Update.
The standard Windows 11 booted for me even with 512MB RAM. It used the page file. Make sure you have an SSD.

Actually the SSE2 "requirement" is a bug introduced by a security update in May 2018:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-unexpectedly-drops-windows-7-support-for-some-ancient-cpus/

Windows 7 Convenience rollup 2016 does not need SSE2 support.

Then it was 2018, I didn't remember the year correctly. But it was March, not May. May is just when MS officially acknowledged the issue and stated that they won't fix it.

[dias_flac_0g]

My questions have already been answered. Thank you for all the useful comments. A mod can close this thread if they want to.

[Steven Seagull]

Originally posted by dias_flac_0g:

My questions have already been answered. Thank you for all the useful comments. A mod can close this thread if they want to.

I think you can mark the answer.

[bidulless]

Originally posted by 🦊Λℚ𝓤ΛƑΛᗯҜᔕ🦊:

Originally posted by Steven Seagull:

No need to do this, just update Firefox.
But how you do the same for Edge and Chrome what you cannot update anymore on Win7?

They don't. Windows 7 users have to use Firefox right now to browse the web safely in Windows 7. After September 2024 when Firefox discontinues updates there will never be any web browsers to use that will remain safe to access websites on.

Hello

Are you considering steam browser safe to use in this case ?

[🦊Λℚ𝓤ΛƑΛᗯҜᔕ🦊]

Originally posted by bidulless:

Originally posted by 🦊Λℚ𝓤ΛƑΛᗯҜᔕ🦊:

They don't. Windows 7 users have to use Firefox right now to browse the web safely in Windows 7. After September 2024 when Firefox discontinues updates there will never be any web browsers to use that will remain safe to access websites on.

Hello

Are you considering steam browser safe to use in this case ?

I did say September 2024. I think we all know that Steam won't work correctly in Windows 7 after Jan 1 2024. It won't be updated after that. Firefox's latest version will remain to be updated "Further" until September 2024.

Also: I'm not even sure what you're talking about. I trust that since steam allows money transactions inside of the steam client that whatever version it uses is safe enough to use for anything, regardless of whatever "version" it appears to run.

[bidulless]

Originally posted by 🦊Λℚ𝓤ΛƑΛᗯҜᔕ🦊:

Originally posted by bidulless:

Hello

Are you considering steam browser safe to use in this case ?

I did say September 2024. I think we all know that Steam won't work correctly in Windows 7 after Jan 1 2024. It won't be updated after that. Firefox's latest version will remain to be updated "Further" until September 2024.

Hello

I was talking about steam web browser , the browser you can use while you are playing a game trought overlay not in the future, but right now.
Is this something safe to use ?
Let me answer that for you, will you ?
The correct answer is no, it's not safe at all to use an outdated cef 85 without any controll on javascript executed on you computer to browse the net , you can be hacked at anytime using it to surf the web ...And not talking about fishing or other way of nuisances ( webp , etc ...).
And i wonder how https://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/ can apply if you get hacked and your computer locked , lost data using the steam client
check point 7 B

[bidulless]

Originally posted by 🦊Λℚ𝓤ΛƑΛᗯҜᔕ🦊:

I'm not even sure what you're talking about. I trust that since steam allows money transactions inside of the steam client that whatever version it uses is safe enough to use for anything, regardless of whatever "version" it appears to run.

Hello

just run any game and call the overlay and there you can see what i am talking about.

[bidulless]

Originally posted by 🦊Λℚ𝓤ΛƑΛᗯҜᔕ🦊:

Originally posted by bidulless:

Hello

Are you considering steam browser safe to use in this case ?

I did say September 2024. I think we all know that Steam won't work correctly in Windows 7 after Jan 1 2024. It won't be updated after that. Firefox's latest version will remain to be updated "Further" until September 2024.

Hello

https://developer.chrome.com/blog/new-in-chrome-85/
as you can see , cef 85 is from August 25, 2020 .
Now what will you told me if i were using ,let say firefox v77 from the same date
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/77.0/releasenotes/
to surf the net ?
Don't you think that even using firefox in this case, can be safer to surf the web just because firefox have additionnal layer of protection that the steam browser does not have and it's a "real browser" made for that and not just the barebone chromium ( security, privacy ) ..

True when you 're saying

I trust that since steam allows money transactions inside of the steam client that whatever version it uses is safe enough to use for anything, regardless of whatever "version" it appears to run.

But surelly not for for other activities like surfing the web.

[🦊Λℚ𝓤ΛƑΛᗯҜᔕ🦊]

Originally posted by bidulless:

Hello

https://developer.chrome.com/blog/new-in-chrome-85/
as you can see , cef 85 is from August 25, 2020 .
Now what will you told me if i were using ,let say firefox v77 from the same date
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/77.0/releasenotes/
to surf the net ?
Don't you think that even using firefox in this case, can be safer to surf the web just because firefox have additionnal layer of protection that the steam browser does not have and it's a "real browser" made for that and not just the barebone chromium ( security, privacy ) ..

True when you 're saying
But surelly not for for other activities like surfing the web.

Usually no one would use the steam client for "surfing the web" and viewing anything outside of the steam store. Also I'm not convinced that the version of CEF inside of The Steam Client is the same thing as the version of Chrome (or even chromium) that we use for browsing the internet. I'm guessing here but I'm pretty sure that Valve employees must be doing some sort of updates to the embedded CEF inside of the steam client to keep it's important security parts updated even if the actual version number reflects an old version of CEF.

I think that even if the Steam client says it's using CEF version 85, that it doesn't actually mean it's using a 3 year old version of CEF in the steam client. That just wouldn't even make any logical sense. They wouldn't let something like that on the internet. Surely they must be modifying the internals of the CEF code and updating it to allow us to use it today.

[Lixire]

Originally posted by bidulless:

Originally posted by 🦊Λℚ𝓤ΛƑΛᗯҜᔕ🦊:

I did say September 2024. I think we all know that Steam won't work correctly in Windows 7 after Jan 1 2024. It won't be updated after that. Firefox's latest version will remain to be updated "Further" until September 2024.

Hello

https://developer.chrome.com/blog/new-in-chrome-85/
as you can see , cef 85 is from August 25, 2020 .
Now what will you told me if i were using ,let say firefox v77 from the same date
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/77.0/releasenotes/
to surf the net ?
Don't you think that even using firefox in this case, can be safer to surf the web just because firefox have additionnal layer of protection that the steam browser does not have and it's a "real browser" made for that and not just the barebone chromium ( security, privacy ) ..

True when you 're saying

I trust that since steam allows money transactions inside of the steam client that whatever version it uses is safe enough to use for anything, regardless of whatever "version" it appears to run.

But surelly not for for other activities like surfing the web.

CEF or older Chrome versions also got security updates from time to time.
for example. yes, Windows 7's last Chrome version officially is 109 but that 109 branch kept on getting a couple of security updates due to Server 2012 R2 being widely used in domain controllers.

[lsdninja]

Originally posted by 🦊Λℚ𝓤ΛƑΛᗯҜᔕ🦊:

Usually no one would use the steam client for "surfing the web" and viewing anything outside of the steam store. Also I'm not convinced that the version of CEF inside of The Steam Client is the same thing as the version of Chrome (or even chromium) that we use for browsing the internet. I'm guessing here but I'm pretty sure that Valve employees must be doing some sort of updates to the embedded CEF inside of the steam client to keep it's important security parts updated even if the actual version number reflects an old version of CEF.

You'd be surprised...

[bidulless]

Originally posted by 🦊Λℚ𝓤ΛƑΛᗯҜᔕ🦊:

Usually no one would use the steam client for "surfing the web" and viewing anything outside of the steam store. Also I'm not convinced that the version of CEF inside of The Steam Client is the same thing as the version of Chrome (or even chromium) that we use for browsing the internet. I'm guessing here but I'm pretty sure that Valve employees must be doing some sort of updates to the embedded CEF inside of the steam client to keep it's important security parts updated even if the actual version number reflects an old version of CEF.

I think that even if the Steam client says it's using CEF version 85, that it doesn't actually mean it's using a 3 year old version of CEF in the steam client. That just wouldn't even make any logical sense. They wouldn't let something like that on the internet. Surely they must be modifying the internals of the CEF code and updating it to allow us to use it today.

Hello

feel free to analyse it
https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Chromium_Embedded_Framework

Usually no one would use the steam client for "surfing the web" and viewing anything outside of the steam store

May be true because i just discovered this nonsens feature just few time ago myself but anyway steam is not a web browser and shouldn't be use this way that why this feature MUST be remove from the overlay

Ok , i can't move to my post using the new steam under my sandbox anyway i made a screenshot to illustrate what i told you,showing you the last steam release and i did update of steam but nothing new to update and as i couldn't post directly from this release ....
https://i.postimg.cc/T2z18tKD/a1-Capture.jpg
The alert about the webp is from the 13 september, most browser builder update the day it appear , even chromium but guess what, not steam. - this is just an exemple.

In conclusion for my initial question :
Are you considering steam browser safe to use in this case ?

the good and correct answer is no unfortunately because this feature, if it seems nice on paper, directly been able to surf the web using steam, is not safe at all, not more than using an old version of firefox published the same date.
Even if steam does not want to remove this feature ( button ) from the overlay, let it launch our own browser for that but i seriously doubt if will happen, because, well harvesting data ( 3.4 ) ...

[RiO]

Originally posted by nullable:

Originally posted by baah pkal:

It's so great I'll have to go through various loopholes to play the games I bought with my money. Thank you Steam.

If you choose to ignore the requirements to use Steam, then what do you expect?

And those requirements would be?
The fun thing is: Valve literally doesn't publish formal system requirements for the Steam client.
Go ahead and try to find them. You won't. The only requirements they publish are for using the Steam Index hardware.

Originally posted by 🦊Λℚ𝓤ΛƑΛᗯҜᔕ🦊:

External drives work exactly the same as internal drives. There is no reason to ever think that they work differently.

That's not entirely true. The modern protocols Windows makes available for burning data on CD-R; DVD+/-R; or BD-R discs are indeed no differen between internal and external drives. However, internal drives also support older API models that offer much lower level access than the high-level modern disc-burning APIs that were purposely limited to make them more plug-n-play ready. Said low-level access is often needed if you need to make exact clones of discs that are ... purposely non-conforming to spec.

Originally posted by 🦊Λℚ𝓤ΛƑΛᗯҜᔕ🦊:

I'm guessing here but I'm pretty sure that Valve employees must be doing some sort of updates to the embedded CEF inside of the steam client to keep it's important security parts updated even if the actual version number reflects an old version of CEF.

I think that even if the Steam client says it's using CEF version 85, that it doesn't actually mean it's using a 3 year old version of CEF in the steam client. That just wouldn't even make any logical sense. They wouldn't let something like that on the internet. Surely they must be modifying the internals of the CEF code and updating it to allow us to use it today.

You'd be guessing wrong.
If you publish an application that uses CEF then the license requires that you either centrally
publish all the changes you made to the source code (incl. the source of any of its in-the-box non-precompiled dependencies, like Chromium) or provide the altered source on-request.

Valve didn't wait for someone to request that, and instead opted for centrally publishing the changes they made to CEF for integrating it with the Steam client.

Those changes do not contain any back-ported security fixes.

What you see is what you get.
If you boot up Steam with the CLI flag that enables the Chromium dev tools and you dump the Chromium version number, then that's the exact true-and-blue version of Chromium it's running; warts and all.

TL;DR Steam is a security swiss-cheese.

And with the recent WEBP vulnerabilties revealed:
https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2023-4863
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-5129

-- literally no-one should be doing anything with the client that goes beyond right-clicking covers in their library to hit 'play'. Because even opening a game detail page will load parts of social feeds that may include trivially infected WEBP images that might be leveraged to perform a remote code execution attack.

Disable the Steam overlay.
Sign out of chat.
And if you must communicate with others, consider other apps like Discord.
Discord was already updated to a version of Electron that's built on top of a patched Chromium. It's no longer vulnerable. (Took them a day since the CVE was disclosed according to NIST, afaict. Taking notes here, I hope, Valve?)

Steam currently is a liability. For everyone.

[Phoenix]

Originally posted by 76561198079797439:

Originally posted by Steven Seagull:

A fully up-to-date Win11 with SecureBoot disabled is million times more secure than Win7 which is not receiving security updates since almost 4 years.

Good one, if you did intend it as a joke.

If not... well, thanks for the chuckle, I guess.

Win7 is already a locked environment. No MS software is ever without vulnerabilities, but pretending like Win11 is not the new treasure-trove of security breaches (and very much the most profitable one) is just straight up laughable.

And no, it's nowhere as "secure" as want people to believe, lack of updates for Win7 notwithstanding. We're still talking about MS software that has had glaring vulnerabilities out in the open for years, if not decades, and Win11 is no exception.

It doesn't help that the subsequent OSs become not just increasingly complex, but also bloated with elements the end user often has increasingly little control over.

And now there's a completely obfuscated hardware element, that the supposed "owner" has no control over, thrown into the mix as well - and one explicitly dedicated to "security" usage. That had documented core vulnerabilities before it even hit consumer market, but who cares, it'd have been too expensive to not ignore.

So much for the "security" of the new toys you like to tout.

Originally posted by BJWyler:

Even owing a computer, like any other expensive product is not a right, nor a guarantee

It damn well should be, at this point.

Have you even tried to apply for any new job in the last decade or so without using a computer? Smart phones might have alleviated some of the issues, but they aren't always a viable substitute to owning an actual personal computer system - even one running "obsolete by corporate decision" operating system.

Yeah, I remember looking at the patch notes one month during a Windows 10 update ... over 100 security bugs fixed. I expect Windows 11 to be no different.