Hundreds of Thousands of Windows XP and Vista Users Won't Be Able To Use Steam Soon (vice.com) 484
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."
Boo hoo (Score:4, Insightful)
No-one should have have to support an OS that came out 17 years ago.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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 [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3)
In several European countries you need to have your car checked and approved for continued use on the roads every couple of years. Sooner or later you ARE going to be told that your car is too old, that fixing it isn't worth the trouble if even possible, and no - you don't get to drive it anymore.
Re: (Score:3)
Actually, the inverse. Eventually your car gets so old the Government designate it 'classic' and admit it's not worth the effort to keep it roadworthy, so skip the checks and drive it anyway.
https://www.gov.uk/historic-ve... [www.gov.uk]
Re:Boo hoo (Score:4, Insightful)
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."
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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: (Score:2)
Modern games aren't necessarily better games. And the XP computers might not even be on the internet and thus safer than the new junk.
Re: Boo hoo (Score:2)
Can you still get Windows 7 or are you stuck with W10 only ?
My guess is the latter.
Re: (Score:3)
NO! (Score:4, Insightful)
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: (Score:2)
Great, you can pay for their new computers then. I suspect most of the XP owners aren't upgrading to Windows but will be using the phones or tablets instead.
Re: (Score:2)
Great, you can pay for their new computers then.
I have Windows 10 running fine on a couple of XP-era PCs at home. Sure you have to tune Win 10 a little to turn off some of the razzmatazz, but no need to pay for a new computer.
Re: (Score:2)
hey, when XP dies, linux share will increase in steam, as most new users are from china and most of then are running XP.
Statistics without china show that linux share is increasing, but china in a percentage statistics nullify that growth
Re: (Score:3)
Then they won't need Steam any way.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm guessing that Windows XP PCs are much less of a threat to the Internet than the zillions of hazily secured IOT devices being pushed out to unsophisticated users. (I think the IOT monstrosities are mostly or all Unix based, no?)
Not that I care personally. I went from Win95 to Win 98 back to Win95 (with about 25 service packs, it was faster and more stable than Win98) to Linux
Re: (Score:2)
And do be honest, these computers aren't all that old. Some may have been major purchases when new, so why not allow the computers to run for a decade instead of the modern concept of shoving them to landfills once a year? The snag is that those computers can't support Vista (even newer than XP) or Windows 7 or heaven forbid Windows 10.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Boo hoo (Score:5, Insightful)
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: (Score:2)
If you can't run the latest Steam client....
Except you can. You just an OS that's not 17 years old to run it on.
I don't feel it's unresonable to ask people to update the OS on their home entertainment PC once a decade. Do you really feel that it is?
Re: (Score:3)
"I don't feel it's unresonable to ask people to update the OS on their home entertainment PC once a decade. Do you really feel that it is?"
Of course it's unreasonable. If "They" sent a guy around every few years to install improvements in your home appliances that frequently rendered them unusable or replaced the UI with some incomprehensible digital shambles, you'd -- quite properly -- be outraged. Same with computers. They are appliances, not a playground for geeks. Treat them as such.
Re: (Score:3)
The "17 years" is nonsense, it's a meaningless measure measurement here. OSX is running a kernel that originated in the 1970s. Linux is 27 years old. XP did get patches, it is not the same OS as 17 years ago (actually released 16 years ago but I understand that math is hard). 10 years is far too short a time to declare that an expensive computer is dead when it's still working just fine. For security just pull it off of the internet but otherwise it should be ok to use.
Re: (Score:2)
Their computer might be 17 years old and not capable of running the new operating systems, so, no, it is absolutely not reasonable to ask it of everyone.
I'm not a Steam user, so forgive the stupid question, but do the Steam games themselves run fine on a 17-year-old computer?
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Though part of the reason they're forcing the upgrade may be because Win XP/Vista lack DRM features they require. It may not be possible to support XP/Vista legacy systems without leaving those security holes, holes that could even be exploited by newer systems masquerading as legacy systems.
Of course that's just speculation, and I suspect that DRM isn't that important to Steam's success anyway. They make a lot of sales because they offer a convenient platform, not because they're preventing pirates.
Re: (Score:3)
hey just install linux and play those games again ... what do you mean that they do not run? my linux games work fine!! :D
Re:Boo hoo (Score:4)
Both of them?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
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.
So long as they first turn off any DRM that would prevent software you already own and purchased from continuing to function you would have a point.
Otherwise if you purchased a perpetual license to something the store you bought it from doesn't have an "automatic right" to recall the item from your home because your house is too old.
Perhaps they granted themselves that right and the right to your first born and the right for you to give them a million dollars on command because they wrote something to that
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
This. Actually I think it's Visual Studio that causes this. Every new version of VS is likely to drop support for the API of a really old version of Windows. And since MS is in charge of VS, they can use this to snuff out whatever old versions of Windows they want nobody to be able to support. For those bitter clinger developers who try to keep support for old versions of the OS, the older versions of VS become unsupported. That's what must be happening now.
I remember long ago when API deprecation in a gam
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
It came out 16 years ago, but it was sold in NEW computers less than a decade ago. When Microsoft was anxiously trying to get people to move to the abysmal Vista the customers often discovered that the "Vista Ready" computers were not able to run Vista and so some vendors would downgrade to XP in order to sell them.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Boo hoo (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Don't forget this covers Vista as well.
Re: Boo hoo (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Seems fine then to take away people's game purchases, since only a few people are getting screwed.
Windows 7 is about 33% on Steam right now. If it dips below 1% in 2-3 years will it be dropped too? Maybe you'll be using Windows 12 or whatever by then and not care about the principle that some people are unable to play games they purchased unless they keep their computers updated.
Maybe it seems fine when you're a young gamer with disposable income, but it's a bit of a pain to stay on top of the latest techno
Re: (Score:2)
I have kids and I manage to keep my OS on a version that came out less than 15 years ago and also keep the oil in my car filtered and maintained. I must be a super human.
Here today, gone tomorrow (Score:2)
if a game worked on my system one day, and stopped working on the next. that's the definition of taking it away.
Maybe you're OK with that compromise. Steam is a convenient service and if it suits you, then great for you.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Who the heck is still running XP... for gaming?
People with old games that don't work on a newer OS?
Re: (Score:2)
Probably. I know people who use and XP VM for this, since compatibility mode doesn't work very well in many cases.
Re: (Score:2)
They're not running XP on new computers, they're running XP because they don't want to pay to upgrade their working computer, or can't afford to.
Solution is to not allow upgrade of the Steam client. If it was me, I'd pull it off the internet and then run everything in offline mode.
Re:Boo hoo (Score:5, Insightful)
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: (Score:2)
So why should this be different?
Re: (Score:2)
Why are they unplayable? Seems like they should be good to go once you've copied to a more convenient format, possibly you need to get Wine or some other emulator.
Re: (Score:2)
>Games that don't use online resources WILL continue to run.
Phone-home DRM isn't a "resource".
>Just install your single player games that already ARE stand alone, pull the network cable, and [they'll still work]
Not sure if shill, stupid, or both.
Re: (Score:3)
There are many games that require running Steam before they start. Skyrim requires Steam to be running unless you figure out the trick to run the executable instead of the launcher, but that's not something that's obvious to the average computer user. That only works because Bethesda only put the DRM stuff into the launcher, whereas other games will flat out refuse to run if Steam is disabled and you're not in offline mode.
Re: (Score:2)
Why not?
Re:Boo hoo (Score:4, Insightful)
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: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Why is 17 the magic number? And why is the date of first release important here and not the date it was last support or the date of last sale?
Windows 10 is 3 years old, maybe we should dump that too as since clearly bitrot has set in.
Re:Boo hoo (Score:5, Funny)
There's tons of XP only games on Steam (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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: (Score:2)
They don't have to SUPPORT an old OS. They just have to not break what works now.
I wish you and the Red Queen a fun race. But do keep in mind that for all the effort you and she expend, you aren't actually going anywhere unless you run twice as fast.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I think you can get an extra couple of weeks by kicking steam into offline mode at the last moment; but as soon as Valve stops treating the last XP-
Re: (Score:2)
There's a difference between not supporting that OS versus actively prohibiting it. The new "features" in steam could have been made optional.
Alternately, get all the games downloaded and go into offline mode permanently.
Upgrading the OS is not easy, in most of these cases it will require a brand new computer.
Re: (Score:2)
The original Metal Gear Solid PC will not work with OpenGL rendering on modern systems. You can use software rendering but you're stuck with 320x240 resolution. Why? It uses 8-bit OpenGL rendering. 8-bit driver support was removed from nVidia GPUs some time in either the FX series or 6000 series of GeForce product.
So, guess what system runs it? An XP system with a Geforce 4 series card.
You can thank the GPU makers for that one. Now you have Steam to thank for a whole new slew of similar fuckups.
Is cutting them off necessary? (Score:5, Insightful)
"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: (Score:2)
Because, due to stupid, it would still generate calls. Better not to run on unsupported systems.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Is cutting them off necessary? (Score:5, Interesting)
Because Steam is partly a DRM solution. Being able to run unpatched versions would allow for crackers to exploit unpatched vulnerabilities which could be used for piracy. Yes it's silly and ineffective like all DRM, but the big publishers, Steam's main customers, want to keep the illusion. Now I don't know what will happen to older games that don't run on Win7, but hopefully Steam will force the developers to upgrade them before the 2019 deadline.
Re:Is cutting them off necessary? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Is cutting them off necessary? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:3)
Because Steam is partly a DRM solution. Being able to run unpatched versions would allow for crackers to exploit unpatched vulnerabilities which could be used for piracy.
Meh, I have the feeling they could solve this very easily by having a legacy client that can only authorize legacy games, like only games that support XP/Vista. I mean they're both out of extended support, there's probably nobody releasing games for them now. Drop all the optional features, you could even drop the store functionality, all you can do is log into your library, download and run old games you already have. Even if you could find a crack for 5+ year old games sales are probably microscopic.
Remem
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
XP 10 (Score:3, Insightful)
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. (Score:2, Insightful)
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... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
why can't they have legacy servers? (Score:2)
IOS does something similar where you can download the last working version of the app for your IOS
why can't steam keep the old legacy servers for the old client and repoint everyone to new servers that will be updated along with client? disable purchasing on the legacy servers and just keep them for the old games
Valve Is Probably OWNED By Microsoft Corporation (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Seriously dude, take your meds. Half what you rambled and shouted here is flat out wrong, and the other half applies to pretty much any modern game, no matter how you get it.
I buy almost exclusively independently developed games through Steam that are DRM free. And while yes, Steam takes it's cut, I wouldn't have found many of those games without Steam, and it makes buying them so easy I'm more likely to impulse buy. And most of them run without Steam running.
The games that require DRM to run do have some s
Re: (Score:2)
Dude... Do you REMEMBER what PC gaming was like before Steam?
"if you love computing as it has always been"
Clearly not. Let's think back, shall we?
You had to have the CD in your computer to play. People started putting in multiple CD-ROM drives so that folks could easily play different games. That's not so bad...
The DRM on those CDs was so invasive, some included rootkits (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal), back-doors, viruses, or would otherwise slow down / take over yo
I've spent $1,000+ on steam games! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
XP refuses to die (Score:2)
This effects retro gamers the most.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Most of it is in China and on businesses with expensive legacy hardware and software.
I'm typing this on XP. (With an 8-core AMD CPU in a box built only 2 1/2 years ago.) I use Firefox 52. I don't particularly want the WebExtensions version. I have Libre Office 5. Not the newest, but recent. Some things no longer run on XP, but most do. It does nearly everything later Windows can do, at 1/8 the size of Win7, without the Metro tiles of Win8, and without the spyware or forced updates of Win10.
But while I do graphics work, business docs, web design and programming on this machine, I don't use c
Re: (Score:2)
oh well (Score:2)
So much for "buying" games on Steam if I can't access them due to an every changing policy at Valve.. The cloud fails us again.
If Vista is obsolete then it won't be long before Windows 7 is taken off the support list. And the handful of us that don't like the amount of telemetry that Microsoft places in recent OS versions will have to stick to playing crappy free games like Tux Racer [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:2)
1 - tux racer is awsome!
2 - you have other good free games, like 0A.D. Warsow, Battle for Wesnoth, UFO, Pingus, OpenRA
3- Best games ever: Nethack and Dwarf Fortress
4- You can just install linux and play those free games or steam games just fine!
Re: (Score:2)
20 years from now I'll still be playing Nethack, Moria, and Angband. Probably the highest replay value of any genre of games. But also not to everyone's taste.
Re: (Score:2)
ATM (Score:2)
I guess they'll just have to hack an ATM. Not to steal money, just to play games on XP..
It's not yours (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
And this is why ... (Score:2)
Last I heard (Score:2)
Offline mode still works. If not that, users should ask themselves if they are ethically and morally OK with pirating copies of games they legitimately own.
But it's been 17 years. MS does not support those versions of Windows any more. The writing has been on the wall for years. It's time to upgrade.
Re: (Score:2)
Windows XP? TOO OLD! (Score:2)
Windows XP? TOO OLD TO GAME ON!
Original NES? Yeah, sure, that'll continue to work forever.
I use XP on my laptop... (Score:2)
Going to stop selling those games? (Score:2)
steam runs on linux mint (Score:3)
Steam runs on Mint. ....just sayin'.... I have Mint running on two xp-era laptops with solid state PATA drives and they're surprisingly snappy. Get an extended lease on life for aging laptops. Unless you just *have* to have one of those new 128 GB Lenovo monstrosities.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Last time I bought a boxed game (2010s some time), it included a Steam key which was required to play.
Re: (Score:3)
Sadly, the whole industry has fallen in love with the concept, and whether it is steam or other, if any whiff of a major label is associated with a game, even single player, it will somehow be just buying an online key and will break at the vendor's discretion down the road.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, after the date obviously.