4 ms·

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 longe

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 2y ago
Windows 7, released 2009. Thats 15 years. I would say that is a long stretch of support by any measure.
- makapuf 2y ago
  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 2y ago
  Initial release date is less interesting than when its last version/patch was released, which https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7 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 2y ago
  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 2y ago
    The environment in which an OS runs becomes increasingly adversarial with time.
  - jonp888 2y ago
    No-one is forcing you to stop using Windows 7 if you don't want to. It's just no longer suitable for this specific use case(running the latest steam client). If you apply the same test to other things you mentioned then often they are the same. They will continue doing the same job if you want them to, but they won't meet new requirements placed upon them, and the only realistic option is complete replacement. For instance, cars over 20 years old are no longer allowed in central London because they lack emissions filters for particulates which are hazardous to health in high concentrations. These cars are considered ancient and it's acceptable to ban them from one of the most important cities in the world. They're not better, and in this specific case you literally can't still drive it(if you live London). My 20 year old DVD player cannot play BluRay discs. It's considered ancient, and it was acceptable to create a new incompatible standard. If I want to play the latest discs I'll have to buy a new one. My dwelling has no gas supply. I have an induction cooker, which heats far faster than either gas or thermal electric whilst also avoiding the dangers of flame and uncovered heating elements. 80 year old pans would not work with it. They're ancient.
  - vel0city 2y ago
    I wasn't dealing with Bluetooth devices 80 years ago. For a ton of people the demands of what they're expecting from their software change pretty radically in 15 years. These days I'm needing more modern hardware support than what Windows 7 offers. I'm managing Bluetooth devices and swapping audio devices much more often. I'm far more connected than 15 years ago. The security threat landscape is pretty different today than 15 years ago. I'm using much larger screens (and vastly different aspect ratios) than 15 years ago and prefer to use the built-in snap layouts rather than just the basic left/right/center in 7. Dozens of more things that just end up making the experience of going back to 7 pretty painful in the end.
SOLAR_FIELDS 2y ago
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 2y ago
  Coincidentally a lot of Mac games don't work on releases newer than Snow Leopard
plorkyeran 2y ago
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 2y ago
  Is that true? I was under the impression that Steam's (default?) DRM required the Steam client to run games.
  - sensanaty 2y ago
    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 2y ago
Windows 7 is older today (15 years) than Windows 95 was when Windows 7 was released (14 years).
- o11c 2y ago
  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 2y ago
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 2y ago
  You don't have to guess, it's easy to check. https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam?platform=pc 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%
npteljes 2y ago
They had plenty of time to prepare for this. There were advance warning signs as well, for example, the end of the active support for Win 7 at, let's see, 9 years ago.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

arka2147483647 2y ago

Windows 7, released 2009. Thats 15 years. I would say that is a long stretch of support by any measure.

makapuf 2y ago
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 2y ago
Initial release date is less interesting than when its last version/patch was released, which https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7 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 2y ago
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 2y ago
  The environment in which an OS runs becomes increasingly adversarial with time.
- jonp888 2y ago
  No-one is forcing you to stop using Windows 7 if you don't want to. It's just no longer suitable for this specific use case(running the latest steam client). If you apply the same test to other things you mentioned then often they are the same. They will continue doing the same job if you want them to, but they won't meet new requirements placed upon them, and the only realistic option is complete replacement. For instance, cars over 20 years old are no longer allowed in central London because they lack emissions filters for particulates which are hazardous to health in high concentrations. These cars are considered ancient and it's acceptable to ban them from one of the most important cities in the world. They're not better, and in this specific case you literally can't still drive it(if you live London). My 20 year old DVD player cannot play BluRay discs. It's considered ancient, and it was acceptable to create a new incompatible standard. If I want to play the latest discs I'll have to buy a new one. My dwelling has no gas supply. I have an induction cooker, which heats far faster than either gas or thermal electric whilst also avoiding the dangers of flame and uncovered heating elements. 80 year old pans would not work with it. They're ancient.
- vel0city 2y ago
  I wasn't dealing with Bluetooth devices 80 years ago. For a ton of people the demands of what they're expecting from their software change pretty radically in 15 years. These days I'm needing more modern hardware support than what Windows 7 offers. I'm managing Bluetooth devices and swapping audio devices much more often. I'm far more connected than 15 years ago. The security threat landscape is pretty different today than 15 years ago. I'm using much larger screens (and vastly different aspect ratios) than 15 years ago and prefer to use the built-in snap layouts rather than just the basic left/right/center in 7. Dozens of more things that just end up making the experience of going back to 7 pretty painful in the end.

SOLAR_FIELDS 2y ago

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 2y ago
Coincidentally a lot of Mac games don't work on releases newer than Snow Leopard

plorkyeran 2y ago

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 2y ago
Is that true? I was under the impression that Steam's (default?) DRM required the Steam client to run games.
- sensanaty 2y ago
  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 2y ago

Windows 7 is older today (15 years) than Windows 95 was when Windows 7 was released (14 years).

o11c 2y ago
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 2y ago

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 2y ago
You don't have to guess, it's easy to check. https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam?platform=pc 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%

npteljes 2y ago

They had plenty of time to prepare for this. There were advance warning signs as well, for example, the end of the active support for Win 7 at, let's see, 9 years ago.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]