Have you been holding off on upgrading your system's operating system? Still stuck on Windows XP or Vista, but the games you play are still compatible so it's no big deal? Well it may be time to start considering a change in OS, at least if the majority of the games you play are through Steam.

This week Valve published new guidance to the community that outlined plans to sunset support for the now ageing Windows XP and Vista operating systems. The catalyst for the change is the application's reliance on Google Chrome for its built-in web browser, the latest version of which no longer supports said OS.

As an immediate consequence new features, such as the latest version of Steam Chat, will not be supported on systems running either Windows XP or Vista. As other features are updated throughout the year compatibility may also be revoked. Then, on January 1st 2019, the Steam Application as a whole will no longer work on the old operating systems.

On this date users running XP or Vista will no longer be able to even run their games purchased through Steam, and will need to update to a newer OS (such as Windows 7 or 10) to regain access.

Thankfully the number of users affected should be relatively small. According to the May 2018 Steam Hardware Survey less than 0.3% of users currently run Windows XP, and it's likely that fewer run Vista. Nonetheless some of those individuals may well be not particularly Tech-savvy parents and grandparents who would find upgrading a non-trivial process.

The change was a long time comming, but credit to Valve for supporting older systems for so long. Windows XP is now almost 17 years old, and even Vista has seen out its 10th birthday.

SOURCE: Steam Community Post