Time halts for no one, not even operating systems it seems. Under the support section of Steam, Valve announced that they would be discontinuing support for 32-bit windows OS computers starting on January 1st, 2026. Steam clients on 32-bit systems will continue to operate after the cutoff date, but will no longer receive updates. Accordingly, Steam support will not be able to help users with technical issues regarding the older OS.
For those in the know, the announcement shouldn’t come as a particular shock. Valve conducted another hardware survey of Steam users in August, including detailed breakdowns of operating systems in use. The vast majority (95%) of players are on Windows, with the biggest groups split between Windows 11 (60%) and Windows 10 (35%). After that, the 64-bit version of Windows 7 makes up a measly 0.07% of the number, meaning 32-bit systems are less than 0.01% of players. No sense in supporting a number that small. Still, at least Valve has given those players time to upgrade before the new year.
The OS stats are the one of the few metrics that are heavily skewed. Across other hardware, Steam users are more evenly distributed. The most popular video card for example, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060, only composes of 4.66% of players. With a huge variety in hardware builds, it seems unlikely Steam will stop support for different devices in the same manner as 32-bit Windows. Still, gamers should check the survey to see if their setup lands in any of the less used categories. There’s always a chance Steam could pull support.
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