Steam should either remove all Games pre-Win7, or add a client that works on those OSs

[Goose]

I know, winXP is old, and many many features can't work. But neither do many games work on Win7 or Win10, and having them on the platform without being able to use them on an Operating System they work on, is kinda stupid. I would love for steam to make something like SteamXP, a Steam which removes all the new features requring things lacking in WindowsXP and Vista.

My imagination for this would be that you log into a SteamXP client, you download games and you play them with no usability besides that, basically a portal to play those old games in VMs and old OS' that will not substitute Steam on a newer OS. No store, no community but workshops to download mods, no chatting whatsoever.

I had the idea when I made the Gothic2 folder into an iso feeding it into my VirtualBox, and running the .exe giving a steam error. For many obvious reasons you need steam to play those games, piracy being very high up, but I cannot run the game on my Windows10 PC and wasn't able to do so on 8 either.

Now, i can imagine a few criticisms and let me catch them before they come.

A: 'that's stupid, most games work fine right now, even the old ones'
>yes, but neither will windows10 be the last os to exist, nor will steam forever keep the client up for windows 7, 8 and 10 as time progresses. If steam doesn't keep backwards compatibility and versions for older operating systems, in the following decades the amount of unplayable games will just grow as technology moves ahead with no ability to keep steam on those old Systems

B: 'just install community patches'
>good idea, let me just go on a website with unsecure servers and in many cases unknown sources for those patches. besides being a safety risk, patches will never keep up and most people who make them at one point will not continue to make those games playable on newer and newer versions, leaving playing them on virtual machines and older PCs the only option

C: 'that is just not worth valve's time, they have a lot to do and this sounds complicated'
>as a dev i can say that a: should they have enough repositories and probably used a VCS and didn't delete the old code, so they could probably just branch an older version that didn't have new features and use that for windows xp. and b: removing features is not really that hard if your code and its features are nice and encapsulated. Not that it is easy since many things tie into each other, but it should not be a huge problem

D: 'just get a physical copy/iso/image somewhere else'
>this answer is a combination of A and B, for one I have high trust in valves security and their servers, their safety and I don't want to download games on downloadgamefreenovirus.com, neither do i want to buy possibly extremly expensive and rare, possibly broken, physical copies of games. Also, as I said in A, many games I have on steam now that barely still run might not work in the next 5-15 years, and I don't intend on having an evergrowing pile of dead games in my library

This should sum up my points pretty much all together, if anyone has any criticism or additions or anything do add them below, I'll respond. Also I obviously don't want those games removed, but what is the alternative if they don't support older games and you cannot play them?

[The End]

引用自 Martin.jg：

Steam should either remove all Games pre-Win7, or add a client that works on those OSs...

Why? I play old games on my Windows 10 just fine, so it should be possible for you to do that too.

That said, very few are still using the old and obsolete versions of windows.

[Goose]

引用自 Rockon：

引用自 Martin.jg：

Steam should either remove all Games pre-Win7, or add a client that works on those OSs...

Why? I play old games on my Windows 10 just fine, so it should be possible for you to do that too.

It is nice that the games you play do not have any issues, but for one a great many games do not work on windows 10, such as gothic 1 & 2, secondly, as i noted, technology moves on, and if steam keeps support up with only the last few windows versions, at some point every game of the past is going to break. Many win98 games have been changed for steam to run on win7, but in 5, 10 years i doubt those games will still be playing on the windows then. At some point you will need a VM to play any game, and as of now, you cannot install Steam on a windowsXP VM

[Start_Running]

I have yet to encounter an old game that doesn't run on windows 7 and from what I here 10 is pretty much the same. Soo.. care to cite a few games as examples there?

A. So long as the OS retains backwards compatability, everything will be fine. COnsidering windows and PC pretty much go heavy on backwards compatability it's unlikely to be an issue, much of an issue. I mean there'll always be issues where games were too highly optimized, but those can be worked around, community patched or patched by the devs....

B.) Yeah and your point is? Ask around the community hubs for the game and you'll get pointed to the reliable sources. Simple as that.

C.) Valve is not going to creat a client for an operating system that isn't supported by it system (Chromium) TDoing soe basically creates a security issue for the entire system

So OP, unless you can cite some games that flat out don't work on windows 7, you're blowing smoke.. And Iw arn you I aam a longstanding collector and enjoyer of old and vintage games on steam so I will be able to fact check ye.

Gothic 1:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/65540/discussions/0/541906989398557528/

Gothic 2:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/39510/discussions/0/1759104780483306784/

Wow that didn't take very long.

[Snapjak]

Site the great many because no one ever comes up with an actual list, just one or two that don't work without tweaks and fixes.

Oh or ones with highly restrictive drm that simply has no functions to use on Win10.

[Yasahi]

引用自 Martin.jg：

引用自 Rockon：

Why? I play old games on my Windows 10 just fine, so it should be possible for you to do that too.

It is nice that the games you play do not have any issues, but for one a great many games do not work on windows 10, such as gothic 1 & 2, secondly, as i noted, technology moves on, and if steam keeps support up with only the last few windows versions, at some point every game of the past is going to break. Many win98 games have been changed for steam to run on win7, but in 5, 10 years i doubt those games will still be playing on the windows then. At some point you will need a VM to play any game, and as of now, you cannot install Steam on a windowsXP VM

Gothic 1: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1823669828

Gothic 2: https://steamcommunity.com/app/39510/discussions/0/1759104780483306784/

Both run on Windows 10.

[The End]

引用自 Martin.jg：

引用自 Rockon：

Why? I play old games on my Windows 10 just fine, so it should be possible for you to do that too.

It is nice that the games you play do not have any issues, but for one a great many games do not work on windows 10, such as gothic 1 & 2...

Not working on win10? here is the numbers of people playing those two games.

Gothic 1:
CURRENT PLAYERS 145 playing now 149 today's peak
Gothic 2:
CURRENT PLAYERS 292 playing now 310 today's peak

I don'r see Valve waste resoiurces on clients for old and obsolete windows versions, and the fact that very few actually use those systems makes it even more unlikely.

[Goose]

引用自 Start_Running：

I have yet to encounter an old game that doesn't run on windows 7 and from what I here 10 is pretty much the same. Soo.. care to cite a few games as examples there?

A. So long as the OS retains backwards compatability, everything will be fine. COnsidering windows and PC pretty much go heavy on backwards compatability it's unlikely to be an issue, much of an issue. I mean there'll always be issues where games were too highly optimized, but those can be worked around, community patched or patched by the devs....

B.) Yeah and your point is? Ask around the community hubs for the game and you'll get pointed to the reliable sources. Simple as that.

C.) Valve is not going to creat a client for an operating system that isn't supported by it system (Chromium) TDoing soe basically creates a security issue for the entire system

So OP, unless you can cite some games that flat out don't work on windows 7, you're blowing smoke.. And Iw arn you I aam a longstanding collector and enjoyer of old and vintage games on steam so I will be able to fact check ye.

For one, as i said in point A, the list is just going to grow. How will you play all those games that now run on windows 7, or do you think steam will keep win7 compatibility for as long as steam exists? The only chance of that happening is if steam decides to drop a final steam7version doing what i suggested. Granted, most games not working on 8 or 10 will work on windows 7, but then i will just copy paste this as soon as steam drops windows7.

secondly, 'reliable sources'. Call me paranoid but I don't believe in this, the more indi and uncommon the game, the less reliable the sources get. People have trust issues downloading linux and testing the hashkey of their images, and some random comunity run service is 'reliable'?

I am not aware of these security issues and where they come from, so i cannot say anything on this but i am curios so please do elaborate. Also, will not in the future same issues arise with windows7? I am sure in the future there will be similiar issues, and i doubt just dropping support would be the best solution.

Now, for the list - I cannot give you one. I had huge problems getting Gothic to run on windows 7 but it ultimately did with patches, but as said above, i don't like third party things, and yes that is a me-problem, but a download and running it resulted in gothic accessing pointers it wasn't supposed to or something, same problem i now have on win10. I know the games that don't work on win10 however, as a collector i am sure so do you. That, means though, that this will be a problem that will have to be adressed in the future, and needs to be kept in mind when valves drops win7

[Goose]

引用自 Rockon：

引用自 Martin.jg：

It is nice that the games you play do not have any issues, but for one a great many games do not work on windows 10, such as gothic 1 & 2...

Not working on win10? here is the numbers of people playing those two games.

Gothic 1:
CURRENT PLAYERS 145 playing now 149 today's peak
Gothic 2:
CURRENT PLAYERS 292 playing now 310 today's peak

I don'r see Valve waste resoiurces on clients for old and obsolete windows versions, and the fact that very few actually use those systems makes it even more unlikely.

yes, through community updates and patches as well as tweaking settings the game is possible to run but as i said, i don't like community patches

[Goose]

引用自 Yasahi：

引用自 Martin.jg：

It is nice that the games you play do not have any issues, but for one a great many games do not work on windows 10, such as gothic 1 & 2, secondly, as i noted, technology moves on, and if steam keeps support up with only the last few windows versions, at some point every game of the past is going to break. Many win98 games have been changed for steam to run on win7, but in 5, 10 years i doubt those games will still be playing on the windows then. At some point you will need a VM to play any game, and as of now, you cannot install Steam on a windowsXP VM

Gothic 1: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1823669828

Gothic 2: https://steamcommunity.com/app/39510/discussions/0/1759104780483306784/

Both run on Windows 10.

for one, i did these and i still have a great many crashes and even at native resolution still graphical glitches and a white bar on top, and i doubt the issues will become fewer in the coming years.

edit: and for gothic 1 you need community patches, which, as said before, is unreliable, a security risk, they are old and will most likely not be updated in the future and there is no guarantee the server hosting the will stay up in the next 10 years

[Crazy Tiger]

Games run fine on Windows 10. The only games I never got to work are the ones that have the dreaded Safedisc and Securom DRM, due to it being completely disabled in Win 10. Otherwise I've yet to come across a game I supposedly can't run on Win 10.

Besides, I want to buy and play those games on my Win 10 machine and I don't want a separate store/client for it. It's useless. Why should my options be limited because some people can't be arsed to do some tweaks to get the games to run?

[nullable]

引用自 Martin.jg：

yes, through community updates and patches as well as tweaking settings the game is possible to run but as i said, i don't like community patches

That's a personal problem, and not one that anyone needs to address. You're not going to get a special client because you arbitrarily want to resist existing solutions.

[ecznos]

I can even run GTA 1 on Windows 10. Everything works fine.

[Zekiran]

All my games run fine on Windows 7, not sure what you're on about.

[GhostOfOderus]

It’s dangerous to go alone. Take this:
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Home

[Aachen]

You don’t need to trust someone else’s wheel, if you’re paranoid about community-sourced vehicle repairs—you can always reïnvent it.