Install Steam
login
|
language
简体中文 (Simplified Chinese)
繁體中文 (Traditional Chinese)
日本語 (Japanese)
한국어 (Korean)
ไทย (Thai)
Български (Bulgarian)
Čeština (Czech)
Dansk (Danish)
Deutsch (German)
Español - España (Spanish - Spain)
Español - Latinoamérica (Spanish - Latin America)
Ελληνικά (Greek)
Français (French)
Italiano (Italian)
Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
Magyar (Hungarian)
Nederlands (Dutch)
Norsk (Norwegian)
Polski (Polish)
Português (Portuguese - Portugal)
Português - Brasil (Portuguese - Brazil)
Română (Romanian)
Русский (Russian)
Suomi (Finnish)
Svenska (Swedish)
Türkçe (Turkish)
Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
Українська (Ukrainian)
Report a translation problem
This topic has been locked 
Discussions Rules and Guidelines
Report this post
if you want to play older games, you can play them on your modern rig.. I am surprised you aren't used to a little manual editing with a build such as that.. still have my CD copy of Lucas Arts outlaws (which is older than XP), and all I have to do to get it to run flawlessly (actually better than it did on my era rig) is move a file and remap the games texture and audio directories..
seriously, I have numerous games from the XP and further back (both on Steam and physical copies, an entire 6 drawer dresser full not including whatever is sitting in the back of my storage locker), and have yet to find a game I can't get working on my W7 or W10 builds..
sure it will take a few minutes of reconfiguration (although nothing compared to some old DOS games I used to play), but they have always played without issues in the end
These forums are made for discussions on such matters, so other are allowed to post and give their own opinion. As long as rules are not broken, the posts are on topic and another thread doesn't already exist on the matter (that is open), then the thread is allowed to run.
I do question if developers still selling these games should be obliged to make the games run without modifications on 7 or 10 or indeed if those that do not, should they have the games removed from the store once XP is no longer supported.
Now what will happen to those XP games when support drops. That is a good question. Keep in mind they don't support dos either and plenty of those games run.
DOsbox exists because people wanted to run old dosgames It's likely some similar contrivance will be found for windows xp. but as said, nmost XP games will run on WIndows 7 without much of a hitch.
Did they advertise support for Windows 7 and up? No. Then they have no obligation to. They are only obliged to make sure the game runs within the specified system requirements.
1) Nothing that is being said about the dropping of Windows XP support is any different than what was said about the previous dropping of support of operating systems like Windows 95/98/Me. These were things like:
* Some games that run on 98 don't run as well or at all on XP (which was just as unlikely back then as games now not running on Windows 10 that run on XP)
* I've only got a system that can run 98 it can't run XP
And we all know that none of these things made any difference in the end, Valve discontinued support for those older versions of Windows then, and they will do the same now. They don't want to and can't easily continue to support these older operating systems, and they don't have to do so.
2) People keep claiming there are games that don't run on Windows 10 that run on Windows XP but nobody can actually come up with any actual games that don't work (sometimes with a little bit of effort but some examples have actually worked out of the box on Windows 10). It's all well and good to say that hypothetically these games exist, but if you can't name any of them, then is it actually a problem? Nobody cares if a game that nobody has played in the last decade no longer runs on Windows 10, nobody is playing it anyway so it's not a problem.
So the issue with this discussion is unless someone can point to actual games (that they would want to play) that won't work on Windows 10 that do work on Windows XP nobody is going to take that part of the argument seriously, and only having a system that can run XP while a regrettable situation isn't going to stop Valve from discontinuing support for it as those people are very much in the minority.
Here is the original post:
The previous topic got locked because it went "off-topic". Let's all try to stay on topic. Thanks.
I am very concerned about Valve's decision to lock Windows XP and Vista customers out of access to the games, movies and other content they paid for on Steam, if the customer is unable to upgrade their operating system for any number of valid reasons by January 1st, 2019. It is one thing to need to stop providing updates to the Steam client for older operating systems, but it is another thing to lock a customer out of the client, if they are unable to upgrade their operating system and can only access their games and content from Windows XP or Vista.
When Origin, Uplay and iTunes reached this same point a year or more ago, all of them stopped providing updated clients and support for Windows XP and Vista, but none of them locked their customers out of their paid content if they were unable to upgrade their operating system. All of them allowed either an older client, or a legacy client to be used, because they did not believe it would be fair, professional or even legal to lock their customers out of the content they rightfully paid for with their hard-earned money. To this day, the legacy clients for Origin, Uplay and iTunes still work to provide access to customer purchased content on Windows XP and Vista.
I believe this sets a very bad precedent when a company decides to do this, a business practice and business vision that every Steam user should be concerned about. I believe that many developers should be concerned about this as well. When many games and content on the Steam store indicate (from the game or content developer) a minimum system requirement of Windows XP or Vista, or if a customer purchased game discs at retail (which require Steam to run) which include these system requirements, the developer would want their customers to be able to enjoy their purchases on those system requirements as long as they wish. That's part of the trust a customer has with a company.
There are many loyal customers on Steam who are unable to upgrade from Windows XP or Vista who have spent thousands of dollars to buy games and content, and on January 1st 2019, if they are unable to upgrade to a newer operating system, will be locked out of their ability to play any Steam-DRMed games, movies or content they paid for. I believe this fact should matter to Valve, just like it matters to other major companies who provide similar services (Origin, Uplay, iTunes, etc.)
When any company does this, I believe it says "you don't matter to us, and we don't care if you can't access the content you paid for". I believe it is very wrong and a very bad business practice to do this. Valve does not need to lock out their customers from their paid content. Another option is available to them to provide what their competitors have already provided - a client that at the very least allows a customer to still access the content they paid for on Windows XP or Vista. The rest of Steam functionality can be accessed through a web browser such as Firefox (which still supports security updates for XP and Vista in the ESR (extended service release) track, which also supports TLS 1.2).
I appeal to Valve to consider all of your loyal customers continued patronage, your customers expectations and rights to continue to enjoy the content they paid for (if they are unable to upgrade their operating system), and to continue to be an industry leader in products, services and customer satisfaction.
Thank you for your time.
(Sent to various Valve employees involved with Steam)
1. Ensure that all customers who cannot upgrade from XP or Vista, won't get locked out of thousands of dollars worth of games, movies and software. Some estimates of how many customers are affected by this ranges from 40,000 - 1.5 million customers or more depending on how it's calculated.
2. Ensure that those who do have a newer operating system but wish to use a duel boot to XP or Vista, or who run XP or Vista in a virtual machine to allow certain games to play better (or at all) would be able to.
Also, as someone else pointed out in another thread, the development of a Steam legacy client would:
3. The legacy client could also be used by Windows 7 customers when the time comes in less than a year and a half (2020) when Windows 7 will no longer be supported by Microsoft. So the legacy client could have a solid place in Valve's offerings to allow continued access to the large number of games that are used by an increasing number of customers.
Classic gaming is important, whether it's games from the 1990's or even games from the 2010's and up. If they weren't important, they wouldn't make up such a large percentage of games on Steam, publishers wouldn't still be re-releasing their older titles on Steam and nobody would buy them.
The reality of Windows 7 discontinuation is right around the corner. How will Valve deal with this? Currently over 30% of Steam customers use Windows 7. Since Steam has over 125 million accounts, that means that about 37.5 million Steam customers are using it. Since Windows 7 was one of the most popular Windows operating systems, that percentage of users will likely not be reduced much in less than a year and a half from now when Microsoft stops supporting it.
So, you can see that this issue will be with us for a long time. Classic (and current!) games that are sold should still be able to be played, and paying customers should not be locked out of the content they paid for with their hard earned money. If Valve wants to keep receiving our hard-earned money and if publishers want to keep selling their older games, then they will need to do something about this serious situation.
I strongly urge Valve to please consider this issue for all of your loyal paying customers and please develop a legacy client or some other similar option for millions of your customers.
Remember this isn't the first time this has happened it is actually the third. There have been two previous removals of support by Valve.
True, this is not the first time Steam has stopped working on older OSes, however the number of Steam customers has increased exponentially since Steam began. So the number of customers affected grows and continues to grow.
I'm talking natural decline here for Windows 7. New PCs all come with Windows 10. Microsoft no longer sells Windows 7. People on average replace their machines every 5 years (hardware failure, or upgrading to something to play a newer game). Hence around 3 years after Microsoft ends Windows 7 support the number of Windows 7 users should drop significantly.