
If you're just the average consumer with a new PC, these are the two editions to decide between. Essentially, it's for any computer that will spend half its life at your home, and the other half at the office. It contains all the features of Home Premium, but adds support for Domain Joining, which you may need to log on to your office's corporate network Windows XP Mode, which makes old software that's incompatible with Windows 7 run as if it was running on XP and Microsoft's Backup and Restore Centre, which is an integrated file and folder backup utility for automated backup of important files. It's becoming harder and harder to use an ancient Windows machine in general - Steam's compatibility change may just be the tipping point that pushes you toward an upgrade.If the answer to these question is yes, you should buy Windows 7 Professional. Epic Games no longer supports those platforms if you want to run Fortnite, for that matter. Microsoft stopped supporting Windows 7 in January 2020, and Windows 8.1 at the start of 2023. There has been plenty of pressure elsewhere to move on. The end of support could be particularly troublesome if you need an older version of Windows for work or a retro gaming system. That still affects a significant number of people, though, and may leave them no choice but to either upgrade their OS or buy a PC with a supported platform. Just under 1.9 percent of the software's audience is using one of the relevant Windows versions, according to Valve's latest survey. Incoming versions of Steam for Windows will also require OS updates that are only available in Windows 10 and newer releases, Valve adds.Īs PC Gamer points out, this won't affect most Steam users.

The game client's latest features use an embedded version of Google's Chrome browser, which dropped support for those operating systems in February. Valve has warned that Steam will no longer support Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 as of January 1st, 2024. You might not want to hold on to that vintage gaming PC for much longer.
