Hundreds of Thousands of Windows XP and Vista Users Won't Be Able To Use Steam Soon (vice.com)

Windows XP and Vista users have six months to upgrade their operating systems or get the hell off of Steam. From a report: "Steam will officially stop supporting the Windows XP and Windows Vista operating systems," Valve, the company that operates Steam, said in a post to its XP and Vista support community. "This means that after that date the Steam Client will no longer run on those versions of Windows. In order to continue running Steam and any games or other products purchased through Steam, users will need to update to a more recent version of Windows."

Comments

Boo hoo

[Skuld-Chan]

No-one should have have to support an OS that came out 17 years ago.

Re:Boo hoo

[sinij]

No-one should have have to support an OS that came out 17 years ago.

Yes, but no one should have a right to disable your working system because it is too old. They are not saying "we won't support your system with new features", they are saying "If you are gaming on an old system, we will make sure it doesn't work anymore".

Re:Boo hoo

[Computershack]

No they're not. They're updating the client, the old OS no longer has the features that the new client needs so from thereon in it won't work. You can still fire up the old client, it'll just sit there doing nothing. You don't have an automatic right to have a software company support massively outdated OS feature sets that was end of life a decade ago.

Re:Boo hoo

[KiloByte]

But why would a game you purchased stop working just because someone no longer considers your OS profitable?

The DRM is sabotaging a perfectly working piece of hardware that can't run newer OS but is fully fit for the game you paid for and which worked well until now. Thus, it's reasonable to demand removal of the DRM or issuing a refund.

Also, running XP and Vista with unfettered Internet access is unhealthy, thus converting these games into offline-only would be ok. It's also reasonable to no longer support the Steam UI, but only if the games can work stand-alone.

Re:Boo hoo

[Aaden42]

Steam is a special case. If you can't run the latest Steam client, the licensing on your existing Steam games will stop working, and you won't be able to play them any more. They're making a change which because of DRM will make your old, not-updated games actively break.

It's reasonable they want to update Steam to modern technologies. It would also be reasonable if they left a legacy license server up that will continue to serve licenses to the last version of Steam that ran on those older systems.

Re:Boo hoo

[Anonymous Coward]

If they work, they're not dead. If they don't hold anything private, they're not insecure.

Re:Boo hoo

[Anonymous Coward]

literally MILLIONS of games will run on xp still. and if all it did was game... who cares about modern?

On the other hand. Your car is too old. We're not going to allow you to buy gasoline here.
Sorry.

Re:Boo hoo

[OrangeTide]

Are you willing to support 17 year old software, for free, when you offer a modern version?

Buying hundreds of dollars of games on Steam isn't exactly the same as free. I'm really only asking that Valve continue to host the data on their servers, not that they do any additional updates to my game library.

I don't think any of us really enjoy the frequent updates to the Steam client. Those updates are something we tolerate, but I'm certainly not asking to pay for them.

Re:Boo hoo

[Anonymous Coward]

No-one should have have to support an OS that came out 17 years ago.

Yes.

We should also be required to tear down and rebuild any structure older than 10 years. All houses, buildings, everything. If it's too old, it must be destroyed and you must replace it.

All cars must be destroyed. All appliances. All clothing. All furniture. Everything that is "too old" must be destroyed. Just think how much money is being lost by the companies who manufacture these items, because people are allowed to keep using them for years and years.

Re:Boo hoo

[Zak3056]

On the other hand. Your car is too old. We're not going to allow you to buy gasoline here.
Sorry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead

Re:Boo hoo

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm struggling to understand why people would stay on dead, insecure operating systems. I mean, modern games require win7 minimum, and those who need XP can and do work with compatibility mode.

There's no excuse.

There is. Both Windows 7 and Windows 10 spy on you.

Re:Boo hoo

[sexconker]

Who the heck is still running XP... for gaming?

People with old games that don't work on a newer OS?

Re:Boo hoo

[Angeret]

And in the UK you get it re-registered under "classic car" regulations, your insurance costs drop markedly and you get back on the road and drive on. Companies are very willing to supply parts at even reasonable costs and there's a whole industry surrounding having an old car. Car restoration nuts would say "Find another analogy."

Shooting support for an OS in the head is going to be irksome for those who have no need or intention to upgrade, but cutting off the software that allows them to play their paid-for library of games is not going to be a great move. If it means forking Steam so that those Users who wish to can carry on but without any extras, updates or security fixes while everyone else moves on - that's a better option than "Upgrade your system which seems to be working fine or piss off."

Non-story

[Anonymous Coward]

"Not supporting" and "suddenly revoking compatibility" are two very different things. Steam no longer being supported on XP and Vista just puts it in the same category as classic open-source and freeware: use at your own risk.
Maybe it will work, maybe not, but it's no one else's responsibility if it doesn't.

Is cutting them off necessary?

[Sniper98G]

"This means that after that date the Steam Client will no longer run on those versions of Windows."

I can understand the desire to not have to support the older operating systems. But, why completely stop in from running?

Why not just say, "if it breaks too bad" and let people risk it if they want to?

Re:Is cutting them off necessary?

[Anonymous Coward]

Boycott Steam, switch to GOG. If the game isn't on GOG, don't buy it. GOG is selling the entire Ultima series including spinoffs, for less than $7.

XP 10

[Anonymous Coward]

Laughable because 10 is so much more secure than a 20 year old operating system, right?

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/cortana-hack-lets-you-change-passwords-on-locked-pcs/

Yeah, about that....

And yet another reason why piracy is better.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pirated games don't care what OS you use. If it runs it runs.

And nobody can alter the deal after the fact.

Why steam has mandatory binding arbitration...

[Anonymous Coward]

Steam forced mandatory binding arbitration on their users because they wanted to be able to offer lifetime access to games, with the ability to revoke your access any time they feel like it's too much work to keep giving you access.

If you accepted it, good luck.

Re:Fuck valve !!

[Anonymous Coward]

There are no more "boxed games", only "boxed Steam keys".

Steam pretty much has a distribution monopoly on PC video games. There are niche services like Origin or Uplay but they mainly just distribute their own games. Or GOG for DRM-free stuff but only a fraction of games is available there.

There's tons of XP only games on Steam

[rsilvergun]

if I owned one I'd be demanding a refund right about now.

NO!

[higuita]

That is plain stupid and egocentric way to think!

A machine may not have anything useful but it can be used a botnet, jump host, malware server, etc
That is why IoT is a big problem, people think like you (eg: it is just a webcan looking to a plant, i do not care), yet it was involved in a DoS that knockout your favorite site, it is acting as a reverse proxy for some child porn, it is CC node in a huge botnet or even just mining some crypto coins.

The fact that it works do not mean that it should not be replaced. At very least should be protected and if it is not possible to protect it (like XP, if it connects to the internet), it should be terminated and replaced.

Re:NO!

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't buy a computer that you're allowed to be completely irresponsible with. If you allow your hardware/software to get old and out of maintenance, that's on you.

To make this into the car analogy you appear to be asking for, this is a lot like not keeping up on maintenance for your vehicle's exterior lights and components. If your tail lights don't work, you're going to get pulled over by cops at some point and have a citation written. If you're going to drive on the road with the other drivers, you have a minimum level of responsibility to ensure that your vehicle is somewhat safe to be driving near.

If you're going to be on the internet with other people, you have some level of responsibility in ensuring that your computer/router/etc are not being used to run botnet/malware operations. Unfortunately that last bit isn't really too enforced by police, but most of geeks would really appreciate if it was. Quit wasting our bandwidth and time with your noise, please.

It's not yours

[Uteck]

RMS has been warning of this for years, you don't own anything if it is on someone else's server.
Steam is just game rental.