If you have an old computer, you might want to upgrade it next year. This is because Steam has announced that it will no longer support Windows XP and Windows Vista from next year onward.
Steam made the announcement over on the official forum pages. You can read the full statement posted down below.
“Starting on January 1 2019, Steam will officially stop supporting the Windows XP and Windows Vista operating systems. 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.
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 7 and above.
For the remainder of 2018 Steam will continue to run and to launch games on Windows XP and Windows Vista, but other functionality in Steam will be somewhat limited. For example, new features such as the new Steam Chat will not be available. We encourage all users on these operating systems to upgrade to newer versions of Windows in order to have ongoing access to the latest features of Steam, and to ensure future access to all games and other Steam content.”
Most computers sold these days are Windows 10 so this means Windows 7 and Windows 8 computers should still work with Steam for the time being. It goes without saying that you will need to upgrade your OS or your entire computer if you want to continue playing Steam games on an older Windows system.
It may not affect many people since I don’t know anybody that still has an XP or Vista computer. Not to mention most games these days require you to have updated specs.