Running an unsupported operating system alongside an unofficial client poses a significant security risk.

_roman_I really wonder if w8 or w7 runs on legacy hardware or up to date, supported common platforms like am4 or am5. platform which get uefi updates, etc. graphic cards which gets updates and so on.

LabRat 891Unfortunately, there's virtually nothing that can be done about the missing instruction/security bit in many NT64/Win7x64 compatible CPUs.
(IIRC, that's a requirement for Chromium, integrated into Steam.)
AM2 / SktF remains the earliest AMD hardware that will run Steam, and the earliest that will run Win10x64.

The systems it would be most-interesting and fun to run it on, it remains incompatible.

If the system is UEFI compatible, just install SteamOS, Bazzite, etc.


Win7x64 ran great on Pre-UEFI legacy x86-64 hardware, it's what it was meant to run with (more/less).
www.3dmark.com/fs/29046490 [16GB Vega 10 + Dual S940 Opty 880, Win7x64]
Early UEFI and 'HybridEFI' era, Windows 7 and 8 are probably your 'most-appropriate options'. (Intel 6-series chipset era, etc.)

Officially, Win7x64 is supported up to the Ryzen 3000 series with AMD 300 series chipsets.
Unofficially, people are running both XP and 7 (and W98SE) on 9800X3Ds :D


From AMD, the RX 6000 series are the last GPUs w/ 1st party Win7 support.
IMO, RX 5700 and Vega are 'about sweet spots' for near-Legacy Windows x64. HD 7970 (Tahiti), if you're multi-booting back to XP.

From nVidia, the 1080Ti and Titan Xp are the fastest nVidia GPUs w/ 1st party Win7 support.
Personally, I'd look at the 980Ti for a multi-booting build; the 780Ti's XP driver is easily modified to support the 980Ti.

_roman_Only excuse may be a retro gaming machine with up to date "fake" steam client which is on the net.

Keeping software up to date is the last approach in my viewpoint. There are far more important steps before that.

I really wonder if w8 or w7 runs on legacy hardware or up to date, supported common platforms like am4 or am5. platform which get uefi updates, etc. graphic cards which gets updates and so on.

TheFighterJetDudeWhat about 3090 Ti for 7

OnasiNo driver support. Flat out. It won’t even work on earlier 10 builds.

TheFighterJetDude3090 Ti does indeed, work on 7

474.11 driver

chrcolukIt wont last long, as he would need to backport every new build, and steam could block people logging in from old builds.

OnasiHuh, so it does. Completely pointless, but interesting. I was sure that they cut that completely since 7 went out of support long before Ampere. So it works on 7, but not early builds of 10. A bizarre choice.

TheFighterJetDudeHow is it pointless

TheFighterJetDudeyou can even still log in to the last official Win7/8.x client from 2024

OnasiFor the purposes of a retro-rig, the 3090Ti is complete overkill. There is nothing from the Windows 7 era of gaming that would benefit from it over, say, an already mentioned 1080Ti. And any games that DO require the horsepower that the 3090Ti has are not really Windows 7 games and often won't even run under it. There are maybe really niche cases with someone having some pro-software that uses CUDA and runs only under 7, but in that case you would have more issues down the line and should just fix your workflow anyway. 7 is a dead OS.

QuietBobI'll be sure to try this unofficial port out. Just last month the legacy Steam client for Win 7 lost more core functionality.
The wider game page layout broke video controls and full screen viewing of images. Also, a recent purchase would not appear in my library until I logged out and in again.


I think the latest update may be from this year, just took this screenshot on my Win 7 rig:

chrcolukIt wont last long, as he would need to backport every new build, and steam could block people logging in from old builds.

EAZYBLACKYou have SteamClient021, which is from 2024, that is the last official win7 client

TheFighterJetDude7 is not a dead OS, and anyway, there is also 8 and 8.1, which is to be used if you want to make use of Resizable BAR.

OnasiYou claiming something doesn’t make it true. 7 is, by all possible definitions, a dead OS. And you haven’t yet made any compelling use cases for why would one want to run flagship Ampere under 7. And if you want to go the route of 8/8.1, you might as well go for the extended support or LTSC version of 10. There is no downside. Just because something is theoretically possible doesn’t mean it’s practically useful, masochistic experimentation aside.

Dyatlov AI would still install Windows 7 for performance and appearance if Geforce 5000 drivers would have been available or modded.

OctopussMaybe I don't understand what backport means, but how can anyone do this without access to the source code?

QuietBobUnfortunately, this port does not work as intended for me. Tested in fully updated 64-bit Windows 7 Ultimate (including December 9, 2025 Monthly Rollup for Windows Server 2008 R2).

I picked the "upgrade existing installation" option in the installer, and the process completed successfully. Upon re-starting Steam the icon for the client appears in the taskbar, but the app never launches.

After multiple attempts, I was able to get the client to run by launching the app again when it was already running. This would eventually bring up a mostly non-responsive dialog window showing that Steam WebHelper wasn't running. I chose to restart WebHelper and the client finally launched after some time.

In my limited testing the store could be browsed, the library and wishlist could be viewed, and the image gallery worked correctly. Notifications also work. I was able to install and uninstall a game, but the client would hang intermittently during the process.

Once again thanks for the effort @EAZYBLACK. Hopefully the next version will be more stable :)

EAZYBLACKOh yea sorry i forgot to say, you need to have a 2015+ kernel update (just install sha2 KB4474419 update)
and also you need KB2999226 (Universal C Runtime Update)
not having those can cause webhelper to not launch.

QuietBobThanks for the tip, but my Win 7 installation has all the updates until December 9, 2025. I also specifically verified it for the two kbs you mentioned.

Although now I've managed to start the client first try. It took about 15 minutes to launch, so I guess I just wasn't patient enough previously :laugh: Plus, it takes up to a minute to load a game page in the library.

This is on an FX-8300 at 4.5 GHz with 2400 MT/s DDR3 RAM, a SATA SSD and an HD7970.. Yes it's an old PC, but obviously there's a software issue here.

EAZYBLACKthats so slow and weird
i think its having trouble loading DWrite (i have w10 dwrite dll in cef folder)
Try this patched file of chromehtml.dll (replace in bin folder of steam)
this patched file makes steam run with single process instead of many process and also disables DWrite requirement (although can add 1s delay when switching games in library, but better than nothing ig)
i will have to investigate why DWrite fails on you