[HN Gopher] Steam drops Windows 7 and 8 support with the latest ...
___________________________________________________________________
Steam drops Windows 7 and 8 support with the latest client
Author : LorenDB
Score : 47 points
Date : 2024-11-12 21:08 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.tomshardware.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.tomshardware.com)
| Zenst wrote:
| This could be interesting, though it became less so after they
| dropped Vista in my experience. Currently, people can upgrade to
| Windows 10 or 11 for free. The main issue for many, however, is
| that Windows 11 only supports certain CPUs. As a result, many
| users with systems powerful enough for the games they play on
| their system that are already beyond the required specs will see
| themselves forced into an upgrade they would not otherwise need,
| want, and perhaps afford.
| alephxyz wrote:
| The big issue with Win10/11 is that it contains malware
| marketed as features
| recursive wrote:
| That's just like... your opinion man.
|
| People have been saying this about Windows since Vista or
| earlier. If you really want to communicate with someone and
| not just score points for your team, you should say what the
| malware is, and why you're calling it that.
| aniviacat wrote:
| Windows 11 literally contains ads
| recursive wrote:
| Not saying it doesn't, but I've been using it daily for
| years, and at least haven't noticed them.
| Symbiote wrote:
| You probably deactivated them, are using a corporate PC
| whose owner deactivated them, or live in a country
| Microsoft doesn't advertise in.
|
| The existence of the adverts is very widely reported in
| the technical press.
| xnyan wrote:
| I'm having to deal with increasingly pushy ads from
| Apple. Banner notifications with ads for their tv, news,
| game and music services, as well as fake alerts in the
| settings app that say some bullshit like "Setup required
| - signup for some icloud storage now!" I work at an
| outfit that uses RHEL, they absolutely inject ads for
| their services whenever you use a shell. Microsoft is the
| most distasteful, but it's matter of degrees for most OS
| vendors.
| Symbiote wrote:
| The standard Windows first-run setup prompts with dark
| patterns to show advertising and send private data like
| keystrokes and microphone audio to Microsoft. It very
| strongly pushes the user to use a Microsoft account to sign
| in to their own computer.
|
| (This is my experience in the EU, so presumably the
| relatively polite version.)
|
| It seems reasonable to call this malware. It's what
| software like browser toolbars did 20 years ago, and they
| were widely criticised for it.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Since at least XP, in my memory, and yes it is pretty easy
| to argue that every version has gotten worse.
|
| Some highlights:
|
| "Windows 10 nagging users with Bing advertisements (push
| alerts)" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27337382
|
| "Why can an ad break the Windows 11 desktop and taskbar?"
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28404332
|
| "Microsoft accidentally reveals that it is testing ads in
| Windows Explorer"
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30711277
|
| EDIT: And to finish the throughline back to XP, every
| version of Windows since then has included more
| "telemetry", which a perfectly reasonable person could
| describe as "spyware".
| Out_of_Characte wrote:
| I dont consider that an opinion anymore.
|
| You have to look at microsoft and windows from the
| perspective of an actual software product. Who in their
| right mind would find it acceptable if their
| program/operating system decided to automatically download
| candy crush. Let that sink in. Either you accept that candy
| crush itself is malware preying on an innocent microsoft or
| there is a significant and hostile attempt by microsoft to
| push unwanted and distracting software onto consumers.
| Which is practically the definition of malware. You could
| add the countless other examples of advertisement and other
| unwanted behaviour that is not fit for an operating system
| and you'll find they fit the description of malware. If you
| happen to disagree then I would like to ask you what fits
| the description of the candy crush saga on windows really
| is.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| > If you happen to disagree then I would like to ask you
| what fits the description of the candy crush saga on
| windows really is.
|
| It's whatever Dell and HP preloading McAfee is; which
| they've been doing in one way or another for decades.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| > The big issue with Win10/11 is that it contains malware
| marketed as features
|
| Besides being extremely opinionated, remember the time Linux
| users were trying to say this about systemd? Now systemd is
| widely accepted except for the luddites at Devuan.
| yallpendantools wrote:
| I know the whole debate around systemd but I never knew
| people even considered it to be along the lines of malware.
| I checked Devuan (which I also just learned from your
| comment) and they say
|
| > Devuan GNU+Linux is a fork of Debian without systemd that
| allows users to reclaim control over their system by
| avoiding unnecessary entanglements and ensuring Init
| Freedom.
|
| which, okay, points towards _that_ direction but I can 't
| find what they exactly consider "unnecessary entanglements"
| nor what exactly means "Init Freedom".
|
| I'm genuinely curious, what exactly are people saying about
| systemd being "malware"?
| Symbiote wrote:
| I don't remember that, and I can't find any evidence of it.
|
| Some vocal users claimed Systemd was being forced upon
| them, or was taking over too much of the systems functions,
| or represented a loss of flexibility or choice, etc. (My
| opinion isn't relevant to your point.)
|
| No one was claiming it would maliciously interfere with the
| computer's security or the user's privacy.
| LetsGetTechnicl wrote:
| It's pretty easy to get around Windows 11's CPU requirements,
| and the only new snag being the POPCNT instruction requirement
| introduced in 24H2. But if you don't have CPU that supports
| that you probably don't want to be running modern Windows
| anyways.
|
| If you really don't want to use Windows 11 (and I don't blame
| someone for that) Linux and Proton is truly amazing.
| MrLeap wrote:
| I feel for the stubborn Win7 holdouts. Based on what I've seen
| of windows 11, I flat out refuse to install it. The
| ad/attention theft situation in 10 was already galling enough.
| 10 has become better after I found all the checkboxes to
| disable but the bad taste it left in my mouth has lingered.
|
| Hearing it gets even worse in 11 made me realize I want very
| badly to get off the dark pattern carousel. I sat down and
| really evaluated what ties me to windows. Not as much as in the
| past, it turns out.
|
| Unity/Godot have linux editors. I'll give Rider a try.
| Krita/Blender have first class linux support.
|
| Of the software I use regularly, the only things that are
| probably dead in the water are Embergen and Worldmachine. I
| don't even know if I want to maintain a win10 dual boot or a
| vm. I'm thinking I'll make a token attempt to get them running
| in wine, and if there's no play, I'll change my workflow. Both
| are great software packages, but such is life.
| jpalawaga wrote:
| Interesting. Windows 7 is a number of years old, but doesn't feel
| that old in the grand scheme of things.
|
| It feels sort of crappy that those users are no longer able
| access the titles they paid to access.
| arka2147483647 wrote:
| Windows 7, released 2009. Thats 15 years.
|
| I would say that is a long stretch of support by any measure.
| makapuf wrote:
| I understand but 15 years old PC are well serviceable (even
| if not up to current specs), so why destroy them because
| they're unsupported ? We will need to be more conservative of
| resources and these PC can be used (think running starcraft 2
| which I enjoy or other older nice PC games)
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Initial release date is less interesting than when its last
| version/patch was released, which
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7 puts at
|
| > Service Pack 1 with January 2023 monthly update rollup
| (6.1.7601.26321) / February 8, 2023; 21 months ago
|
| which isn't _super_ recent but is pretty close.
| bambax wrote:
| But why? Why is it acceptable to consider OSes 15 years old
| ancient, when that logic never applied to almost any tool in
| the history of mankind, and still doesn't apply to any other
| category except software?
|
| In my home all the machines are 20+ years old and work
| perfectly fine (oven, washing machines, vacuum cleaners,
| irons...) not to mention things that don't need electricity,
| which are 30 or sometimes more than 80 years old (furniture
| but also cookware, etc.)
|
| A bike that's 20 years old feels ok and modern; a bike starts
| to really look ancient at maybe 50 years old? We can still
| drive cars made in the 80s and 90s (and they're often better
| than newer ones).
|
| Windows 7 works fine, why should it go to waste, and the
| machine it run on, and why should people be forced to upgrade
| and change or abandon all the little customisations they have
| set up that makes their lives easier? Don't we have better
| things to do with our time than relearn a new way to do the
| exact same thing?
|
| I understand the motivation of vendors to try and sell new
| things; what I don't get is why we put up with it.
| skavi wrote:
| The environment in which an OS runs becomes increasingly
| adversarial with time.
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| FWIW, the equivalent release of MacOS at the time was OSX Snow
| Leopard, so that would be like people running Snow Leopard in
| 2024. I know the comparison is not exactly the same, since the
| philosophical approach is a bit different between the two
| vendors, but it does help conceptualize just how old W7 is
| nowadays.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Coincidentally a lot of Mac games don't work on releases
| newer than Snow Leopard
| plorkyeran wrote:
| Even once the old version of the steam client stops working
| you'll still be able to play the games; it'll just get harder
| to install them on old versions of Windows.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Is that true? I was under the impression that Steam's
| (default?) DRM required the Steam client to run games.
| sensanaty wrote:
| The default steam DRM (optional btw, devs decide if they
| want it) is hilariously easy to bypass. Just stick a
| certain .dll in the game directory and it's cracked
| dathery wrote:
| Windows 7 is older today (15 years) than Windows 95 was when
| Windows 7 was released (14 years).
| o11c wrote:
| It doesn't feel like it since there hasn't been much
| improvement in the latter range of time.
|
| At least Windows 7 could claim that it resolved most of the
| permissions bugs that came from upgrading security to 1970s
| standards, so it was actually an upgrade to XP.
| caspper69 wrote:
| Time flies when you're having fun I guess.
|
| Windows 10 released on July 29, 2015 or almost 9.5 years ago.
|
| While I'm sure there are people gaming with Steam on 7/8/8.1, I
| doubt it's very many (Valve's own statistics I'm sure would
| support this).
|
| I would also point out that Steam on Linux only officially
| supports the latest LTS release of Ubuntu, which means they
| support old versions of Windows _far_ longer. Of course, Ubuntu
| is free, and the kernel hasn 't introduced any draconian
| hardware restrictions, but I think Valve has done a good job
| with their Windows support.
| homebrewer wrote:
| You don't have to guess, it's easy to check.
|
| https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-
| Softw... Windows 11 64 bit 50.51% +1.26%
| Windows 10 64 bit 49.12% -1.13% Windows 7 64 bit
| 0.29% -0.03% Other 0.08% -0.02%
| textadventure wrote:
| This was long coming and announced (Steam had a big hard to miss
| warning whenever opened on Win 7, for pretty much the entire
| year), but yet another reminder that when it comes to digital
| libraries (of games, apps, music, movies, books, etc), your
| "ownership" of your titles is dependent on countless variables.
|
| Even though GOG's own client (GOG Galaxy) has been requiring
| Windows 10 for even longer, you could always just download the
| games from their website and manually install them no problem.
| exe34 wrote:
| not your (gpl) source code, not your game.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Even if that were possible, the GPL license makes no sense
| for artwork or music, and is quite possibly legally
| unenforceable in such a context. You need a combination of
| GPL + Commons; and how many games are licensed that way?
|
| But even then, GPL + Commons does not give you trademark
| rights, only the ability to reuse the assets under a
| different name. So unless you have GPL + Commons + Trademark,
| do you really have ownership?
|
| But hold on, in Japan and in the US, game mechanics can be
| patented. So who cares if you have the code, assets, and
| trademark, if you don't have patent rights? I suppose you
| need GPL + Commons + Trademarks + Patent Assignment; or maybe
| you swap out GPL with Apache2.
|
| Now hopefully whoever made the artwork doesn't sue for unpaid
| royalties. You're relying on the declared licenses, but it's
| still possible that whoever made the game, lied in one way or
| another. It's also possible there are applicable patents
| owned by other companies, which weren't disclosed.
|
| The point is: Even with GPL code, it's still a long way from
| being "your game." I didn't even mention the middleware like
| Havok Physics or Unity Engine; which would render your GPL
| game code pretty useless without a proprietary attachment, if
| using the GPL license at all is even legal with such a
| combination.
| LetsGetTechnicl wrote:
| Honestly, for users affected I wonder if switching to Linux and
| using Proton is a suitable alternative. I've been using Pop OS
| and Steam on my gaming rig for a few weeks and it works
| incredibly well!
|
| I've been playing the new Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered and
| haven't had any major issues. The only reason I keep Windows
| around in a dual boot setup is because of Fortnite
| Arch485 wrote:
| I got so fed up with Windows 11 and Microsoft's BS that I
| bought a new PC with an AMD processor and GPU so I could daily
| drive Linux (for context, NVIDIA hates open source and so there
| aren't any good drivers on Linux).
|
| I've been running most of my games through Proton, and the
| experience is flawless. Only game that hasn't worked for me is
| Rust because of some EAC requirements.
| mjevans wrote:
| Classic games probably work mostly well at this point.
|
| https://www.protondb.com/
|
| It'd be nice if SteamOS had more recent versions for normal
| PCs. Arch Linux is sufficient for a developer or power user,
| but for the average person is too painful.
|
| Debian Stable (most recent update) should be a generally good
| experience for any PC that ran Windows 7 naively. Though I do
| worry about some specific hardware, mostly nVidia GPUs
| retaining support for that long, at least the old drivers will
| probably work?
| tmountain wrote:
| I feel like I am getting so old. Windows 7 still feels like a
| "new" OS to me.
| Out_of_Characte wrote:
| Windows 7 was the last good OS that came out of microsoft for
| me.
|
| I would honestly switch from linux to windows 7 if they
| provided support.
| est wrote:
| I'd bet the main culprit is the Chromium library
| ryandrake wrote:
| > You should still be able to continue gaming on your system as
| long as you don't forcibly update Steam, though how long that
| remains possible remains to be seen.
|
| This is always the question when "drops support" comes up: Will
| users be able to at least stick with the older version of Steam,
| and just not take updates, or will users get hit with the usual
| shitty modern software catch 22: You can't use the software
| because it's not the latest version, and you can't get the latest
| version.
|
| I hate to say it but I think we really need some kind of basic
| regulation in this area. Companies should not be able to just
| _decide_ to remotely stop you from using your software just
| because they consider it old and icky.
| burningChrome wrote:
| >> I hate to say it but I think we really need some kind of
| basic regulation in this area. Companies should not be able to
| just decide to remotely stop you from using your software just
| because they consider it old and icky.
|
| I totally agree, but also disagree.
|
| I worked at a large corporation that designed and built lawn
| maintenance equipment. It sold both commercial and retail
| products.
|
| I worked there as a front-end developer. This was in the mid
| aughts when it had already been 5-6 years since companies had
| dropped support for it and developers were already migrating to
| Chrome and Firefox. I was told everything I coded had to have
| backward compatibility with get this. . . . .IE 6. They said
| they had several vendors in China and overseas and the only way
| they could order their stuff was on a site that still worked in
| IE6. It was more or less just an order form they would print
| out, fill in, and then _fax_ to our office for fulfillment. It
| was probably the most mind numbingly stupid experience I was
| put through and it felt like torture telling your dev friends
| you 're still dealing with having to code stuff for IE6.
|
| So yes, I agree, but we should at least have some kind of
| limitation on how long a company needs to support their
| software since it eventually ends up costing the company a lot
| of time and energy. The company I worked for had spent a lot of
| money to deal with all the issues associated with supporting
| IE6. Developer churn was pretty high because devs would get
| there and think they were having to work at some clown show
| because this company had made the decision to stick with this
| very outdated technology.
|
| So yes, I agree we need regulation, but we also need some
| decent guard rails so what happened to me at the above company
| doesn't continue to happen.
| SG- wrote:
| Unless I'm mistaken too, the macOS Steam client is still Intel
| only after all this time. It's not a huge market but I find it
| kind of weird since there's many Apple Silicon games on Steam for
| sale.
| jjcm wrote:
| This too is my biggest request. It's also surprising how many
| resources the client itself takes.
|
| That said, given the stats I agree with their prioritization.
| OSX makes up 1.39% of their market share:
| https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Softw...
|
| Linux has a higher market share than OSX (likely due to the
| Steam deck, but still I was surprised by this).
|
| I actually think this is something Apple should be taking the
| lead on, rather than Steam. It's clear that they value gaming
| on their devices, they just invest so little in it. Input
| latency is still poor and there are still big hiccups in frame
| rates which make competitive games on OSX a non-starter. If
| Apple invested more here and partnered with Steam, they could
| make some significant headways. Apple seems to want to avoid
| partnership here though (ie the prior vulkan vs metal issues).
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-11-12 23:01 UTC)