Time goes by and Microsoft offers new versions of Windows. For further operation of Steam, you need things that are only available in modern operating systems
Steam has been on the market for many years and has already managed to “outlive” some operating systems. Valve has decided to discontinue support for several operating systems.
Steam Support would like to remind you that as of:
“January 1, 2024 Steam will no longer support Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 operating systems. After doing this, you will not be able to run the Steam client on these versions of Windows. To be able to run games or other products purchased on Steam, users will need to update their operating system to a later version of Windows.”
Valve explains the lack of support for Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 by saying that key Steam functions rely on the built-in version of Google Chrome, which in turn does not work on older versions of the operating system. They also note that future versions of Steam will require features and security updates that are only available in versions of Windows 10 and higher.
On February 1, 2024, Steam will officially stop supporting macOS versions 10.13 (High Sierra) and 10.14 (Mojave).