Steam needs to meet old OS users halfway this won't be a 2% of users problem it will be an all users issue in a few years

[MrEvilness]

With steam planning to drop support for windows 7, 8 and 8.1 and steam basing support on Microsoft's support schedule giving Microsoft a heavier hand on their OS schedule. At present a new OS comes out every few years with a general security update plan of about 10 years. Afterwards there is nothing stopping Microsoft from churning out a new hot garbage OS every 2 years and a 4 year security update plan. Not only that but the life of the computer will be dictated by the sale date of the hardware by arbitrary system requirements that are linked to the manufacture date rather than hardware capability. So essentially a PC essentially becomes a brick after a calendar date rather than the lifetime of the device. If you are for some reason fine with updating ur system OS and hardware every few years or lose access to your steam account model google windows millennium and google windows vista. The trashy OS releases will only get worse from here

Now for the meeting halfway mark i am fine with steam disabling store functions for old OS users. Let me keep my library access and game updates and to make purchases through my mobile app and i am set. Capitalist apocalypse averted, security issues on steam's end is met, leave the risk of a person using an old OS just be that person's business.

*Edit*

I brought this issue up because this becomes a trust issue between Valve and the consumer base. Not one person here can tell with any certainty what the future holds, whether they can afford to update the hardware and software in tandem with societal expectations or norms.When you make any changes to the hardware and software setup of a computer there is no certainty of older software running the same if at all afterwards.

Right now steam runs perfectly fine on my computer there is no reason steam cannot allow players to use their present setup other than their own agendas. It is not like it will cost them money to leave a skeleton client running for people on an older system. The risk of an insecure operating system is just a boogeyman referenced to justify the decision.

In short i bought the machine, i bought the operating system, i bought the licenses that i use off of steam some of which have a 3rd party DRM i kept the machine in good condition. I make regular purchases albeit less frequent than my early twenties. There is no reason to disable a service based on a dated OS.

For the people referencing even older OS as reasons why my point is invalid. I was not on them when their service was discontinued if i was when they were, you would have heard from me sooner on the topic.The age of their systems did not and would not invalidate their objections to a service being withdrawn. This just leaves windows 10 people 2 years till they are in the same boat. My stance on whether people with a functioning computer should be excluded from service based on a third party will not change. The only thing that might change is the average consumer's perceived value for the service when taking into account the treatment of longtime consumers.

*edit*edit*

For the offline mode suggestion i worked with a laptop that was running in offline mode from 2009-2010 every few months the program crashed losing it's credentials and required a login to continue offline use. The offline mode viability would require steam to allow periodic logins.

FYI my machine is 7.4 years old not over 10 and to the idea that im not a gamer based on the age of the machine i'm using does not hold water. If you reapplied that thought process to any other field it reveals how asinine it is, Your fishing pole is more than 10 years old, you must not be a fisher, your car is more than 30 years old you must not be a driver.Your oven is more than 25 yours old i guess you are not a baker. It's not on my steam account but the oldest game in my arsenal is about 40 years old. I grew up playing it and i still run it from time to time. So does the age of the product make me not a gamer?

For the steam os to no longer operate on an old system would be as if sony and microsoft not just pulling their store for the retired consoles but also wiping the OS the next time they connected to disable further use. This move by steam is entirely unethical.

*edit*edit*edit
Steam absolutely can and should accommodate old OS users, this would not take significant resources on their part as the software is already running right now as I am posting a response to bad business practices. All steam would need to do is remove the store access to the currently running CLIENT and any other features they would need to secure to protect themselves. If they want to register Legacy machines and prevent new machines of the discontinued OS's from coming online I would have nothing to say. The dropping of the steam service is not the same as other platforms. XBOX, sony and nintendo systems that have support dropped can still run the content they already downloaded. Steam might allow offline mode but only until the software has a hiccup which i have never known steam as a stable client In any decade.

[Satoru]

Escrito originalmente por Muppet among Puppets:

Escrito originalmente por BJWyler:

Which statistics are those? And I guarantee that being afraid of data collection is not one of the reasons most of them haven't upgraded. That is a "you problem" for a (very) small portion of the userbase. Which is a Strawman anyway. Data Collection is prevalent every where, and that's only going to change when people force their lawmakers to change it.

You need to do settings. There is some collection no one wants or needs.
Same in phone os.
Settings are needed. There are programms that help with these. Or help to see.

Windows 10 presents all of this the moment you boot the OS for the first time and anyone can freely disale all the telemetry if they choose to.

[Muppet among Puppets]

Escrito originalmente por Satoru:

Escrito originalmente por Muppet among Puppets:

You need to do settings. There is some collection no one wants or needs.
Same in phone os.
Settings are needed. There are programms that help with these. Or help to see.

Windows 10 presents all of this the moment you boot the OS for the first time and anyone can freely disale all the telemetry if they choose to.

No, there is a lot left to set.
I did settings before the setup told you,
and i did not get the impression since setup tells some, that i didnt have to set the rest anymore.

[Crazy Tiger]

Escrito originalmente por Start_Running:

This was the same thing that was said when XP went.
Come to think of it, when they dropped XP, it was also about 2%.

The survey for June 2018 shows 0.23% XP and nothing for Vista.
https://web.archive.org/web/20180727202313/https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam. But XP/Vista users did make more noise back then than the 7/8 crew currently, though.

[VB Driver]

Surveys can't be trusted. It's like those political "polls". Only select minority is asked and then results are made up to satisfy propaganda.
Win 10 propaganda in this case.

[Ǥɾᴧᴤʆᴧᵯᴧ]

It's amazing how some people here defend Windows10/11 and don't have the intelligence to question things. I also keep reading about the same people in each of these threads. But it seems that they know that if they side with Microsoft, they will win in spirit because Microsoft has the power to do what they think is right. So they keep posting kind of the same thing in every thread.
In other political situations, these people are called lickspittles or useful idiots. They fight for a company or political actor which doesn't give a ♥♥♥♥ about them. But it's just more important for these lost souls to be on the winning side when they can beat up on a minority. It makes them feel good deep down, doesn't it? Or why do they do that?

Fun fact: Swarm intelligence does not just express a higher intelligence through the union of very many individual intelligences. Swarm intelligence may well act more stupidly than the intelligence of a comparatively smaller group.
The point here is not to generally portray a large group as stupid. It is about saying that there can be a small group of intelligences who simply have more insight into a matter and whose opinion is suppressed by a large mass. The mass that simply swims with the maelstrom. But we are also all comfortable somewhere....

[Muppet among Puppets]

Escrito originalmente por Ǥɾᴧᴤʆᴧᵯᴧ:

It's amazing how some people here defend Windows10/11 and don't have the intelligence to question things. I also keep reading about the same people in each of these threads. But it seems that they know that if they side with Microsoft, they will win in spirit because Microsoft has the power to do what they think is right. So they keep posting kind of the same thing in every thread.
In other political situations, these people are called lickspittles or useful idiots. They fight for a company or political actor which doesn't give a ♥♥♥♥ about them. But it's just more important for these lost souls to be on the winning side when they can beat up on a minority. It makes them feel good deep down, doesn't it? Or why do they do that?

Fun fact: Swarm intelligence does not just express a higher intelligence through the union of very many individual intelligences. Swarm intelligence may well act more stupidly than the intelligence of a comparatively smaller group.
The point here is not to generally portray a large group as stupid. It is about saying that there can be a small group of intelligences who simply have more insight into a matter and whose opinion is suppressed by a large mass. The mass that simply swims with the maelstrom. But we are also all comfortable somewhere....

It could also be, that they use windows because of something, and accept the rest.
You use it, and dont accept the rest.

In summary.
Does that mean, you made a wrong choice?

[Tito Shivan]

Escrito originalmente por Ǥɾᴧᴤʆᴧᵯᴧ:

It's amazing how some people here defend Windows10/11 and don't have the intelligence to question things.

Maybe it's just people have been hearing the same excuses for not wanting to upgrade to W8, W7, Vista, WinXP or Windows 2000... From people who will upgrade regardless and see the futility in all this discussion.

It's like those 'this Steam sale is the worst every threads that pop up every sale.

[eram]

soon you will upgrade and keep the old hardware as an offline retro pc

[shado]

oh my god I am so smart look at my intellect when I did not upgrade from vista
from 7
from 8.0
from 8.1
from 10 <- we are currently here btw if you didn't get it

[matrixdll]

I wouldn't mind ditching Win 7 and 8.1, so long as Steam OS / Linux or any other alternative to Winbloat trackware 10/11 is able to run all my favorite games (which they don't, not even with proton and all the other nifty wrappers & emulators)

There are currently more of Windows 7 and 8.1 users combined than there are of the Linux system and you don't see Steam abandoning Linux support.

[eram]

Escrito originalmente por matrixdll:

I wouldn't mind ditching Win 7 and 8.1, so long as Steam OS / Linux or any other alternative to Winbloat trackware 10/11 is able to run all my favorite games (which they don't, not even with proton and all the other nifty wrappers & emulators)

There are currently more of Windows 7 and 8.1 users combined than there are of the Linux system and you don't see Steam abandoning Linux support.

win7 will no longer be supported so valve will also no longer be supporting it.

[OmgDaNinja]

Are you guys aware its not really Valve that stops supporting but Google? Chromium which steam client requires is dropping the win7/8 support which forces Valve to drop it too.

[Satoru]

Escrito originalmente por VB✠Driver:

Surveys can't be trusted. It's like those political "polls". Only select minority is asked and then results are made up to satisfy propaganda.
Win 10 propaganda in this case.

Note Steam's hardware survey has access to so much data, that it's extremely accurate. Any actual massive problems with the data actually become extremely obvious as happened in 2018 when they were counting cybercafe's multiple times which resulted in a massive skew in the data month over month. This was corrected.

Steam's hardware survey shows you exactly what you would expect, slow adoption of new OS and slow decrease of older OS over time. In 2018 Windows 7 was about 40%. Today its now less than 2%. This is entirely a normal and expected progression.

The data 'not saying what you want' does not mean its 'biased'. It says pretty much what would be expected. You not liking the data is not Steam's problem.

[Odra]

Escrito originalmente por OmgDaNinja:

Are you guys aware its not really Valve that stops supporting but Google? Chromium which steam client requires is dropping the win7/8 support which forces Valve to drop it too.

It doesn't really matter who is responsible, in their mind Valve their target because they need something to tilt against and since they are already used to these forums they chose the path of least resistance to deal with their frustration.

So its almost therapeutic for them, they get to feel like they are fighting the good fight, find other like minded individuals and dress each others wounds which brings a sense of belonging and comfort.

One of the things I notice is that they seem to consider the Steam user population as static rather than dynamic, while this change will lead to the loss of Steam users too stubborn to change the loss itself is not as drastic as they play it out to be. Every day new people join Steam with newer machines, and they in time will replace the losses and then some.

[Mad Scientist]

Escrito originalmente por VB✠Driver:

Surveys can't be trusted. It's like those political "polls". Only select minority is asked and then results are made up to satisfy propaganda.
Win 10 propaganda in this case.

Users are free to decline the Optional Hardware Survey when asked.
It is nothing like a political survey, it's meant to gather as much data as possible if users decide to use it, so they know who's using what, which is useful to them & Developers. There is no "propaganda" here, it's simply updates that kill compatibility that will happen regardless of who hasn't upgraded.