Steam Windows 7/8 will be losing support for Steam on January 1st 2024.

[Krvavi Abadas]

As of January 1 2024, Steam will officially stop supporting the Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 operating systems. 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.

The newest features in Steam rely on an embedded version of Google Chrome, which no longer functions on older versions of Windows. In addition, future versions of Steam will require Windows feature and security updates only present in Windows 10 and above.

i feel like this is a far bigger issue than them previously dropping support for XP, particularly for people interested in retro computing.
as the Windows 7 era was when devs began relying on Steam more and more to the point that the vast majority of PC games were locked to it. which has plenty of advantages on it's own, but leads to problems once support is dropped.

people have attempted to work around the XP shutdown, which was effective for a bit. but it eventually got to the point where it's now genuinely impossible to download games on it.
the fact it's related to Google Chrome makes it particularly worse, as Valve has been moving several important elements of the client to becoming browser-based. including the login screen.
the wording of "no longer running" could flat out mean it's impossible to login once the date rolls by, making the service (and any games that don't happen to be DRM-free when downloaded, which is naturally the vast majority of the library.) unusable on vintage computers without resorting to piracy.

Valve (or their support team, at least) has consistently brought up having the idea of creating an offline contigency mode of sorts if Steam ever needed to fully shut down.

In the unlikely event of the discontinuation of the Steam network, measures are in place to ensure that all users will continue to have access to their Steam games.

but it seems very unlikely they'll pull it out for this.

also, to get the obvious question of "why not just get your collection on GOG? since they provide downloadable DRM-free executables" out of the way....

1. GOG, while having some improvements in getting more Windows 7-era games acquirable through their site. is still missing a large chunk of them. not to mention situations where the developer and/or publisher of the game no longer exists, making it unlikely said game will get released outside Steam (assuming it wasn't already delisted)
2. GOG is also directly entering the business of selling games that aren't DRM-free, which means the exact same situation will happen again once Windows 7 support is eventually dropped on the Galaxy client. just to a lesser extent.

 

[IsisStormDragon]

This is... not great news.

Sure, I can and probably should upgrade my gaming desktop from 7 (it's been packed due to life circumstances, so I never got around to getting 10 and now 11's a thing), but this is still an unpleasant surprise.

 

[Imitatio]

the fact it's related to Google Chrome makes it particularly worse

I've never been a fan of their growing reliance on Google software, in this case Chromium (afaik, it's not really Chrome per se that's implemented in Steam, but its open source foundation; I thought it was actually Electron Steam's using, basically a Chromium-based web-app, if you will).
Though from an economical standpoint, I do kind of get why they'd use this tech.

 

[Krvavi Abadas]

"The procedure entry point DiscardVirtualMemory could not be located in the dynamic link library KERNEL32.dll"

the most recent update to the client (released a few days ago) now displays this error message when launching on 7, and it unsurprisingly has completely broken pretty much every Ubisoft game that uses it. since they need the launcher running in the background to work.
pretty much everything sold on Ubisoft's store, including Ubisoft titles that are DRM-free elsewhere and a few random indie games. works like this, so you're basically screwed depending on how much you've bought there.
this is pretty much the worst case scenario, and what could possibly happen to Steam in a few months.

(oh, and if you think you could haphazardly work around it by using a very lightweight Linux distro + Wine/Proton. the compatibility layers are also breaking due to the change.)

 

[Krvavi Abadas]

we've now entered the twelfth day since Valve officially discontinued support. though they've thankfully backtracked on the client no longer working entirely. with the support article being updated to state that

We expect the Steam client and games on these older operating systems to continue running for some time without updates after January 1st, 2024, but we are unable to guarantee continued functionality after that date.

regardless, it's worth noting how other launchers have been going since the date. with the EGS launcher in particular still getting updates on 7.

while the patch notes make it clear the changes are solely "bug fixes" for now, it does suggest Epic might be more willing to keep the launcher running on older hardware in the long term.
this is particularly curious as games on the client are generally less reliant on requiring said launcher compared to Steam, with a larger selection of titles being pretty much DRM-free after installation.

 

[Oscillator]

I've just got the client perma-set to stay offline and not update. I've only have one mostly-offline game on Steam, so that'll work for me.

But for anyone with games with heavy online functionality and/or wanting to continue purchasing games.

 

[Krvavi Abadas]

(message added in the most recent client update)

The Epic Games Launcher will no longer support Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 10 (32-bit) starting June 2024. After this date, existing installations on these operating systems will no longer receive updates of any kind. The Epic Games Launcher will continue supporting Windows 10 (64-bit), Windows 11, and macOS 10.13 or higher.

After June 2024, players will still be able to use the Epic Games Launcher on Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10 (32-bit), just not in an officially supported manner. Epic will be unable to provide technical support for users of these operating systems, and Launcher features on these operating systems may degrade or stop working over time.

six months isn't particularly long term, but it's appreciated that Epic is openly stating the client will still work even without new updates. pretty much the same issue as before, where the launcher uses the HTML-based Electron framework as a base.

again, the large selection of titles that only need the client for installation makes it less of an issue than Steam.