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Steam for XP in 2019?


kitaro1

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41 minutes ago, TrevMUN said:

Can confirm. I happened to have, miraculously, a copy of Steam from before the countdown update which still works with the servers. For now.

Really hoping Valve doesn't pull a dick move and block access to the servers for older versions. Though I suppose they could still technically be used to run XP-friendly games as Steam does offer to run offline if it can't connect.

 

It's true that some of the games on Steam which once supported XP get updates that cease compatibility. I've noticed this happen with some of the titles I own, to my chagrin.

However, it's still worth it for the games that don't get such updates, especially for offline games.

I'm currently having a problem with my computer (one of the motherboard RAM slots isn't keeping the chip secure and it's throwing bad data ... My hand may be forced and I may have to overhaul my desktop now) but once I can confirm my other RAM is working fine and my hard drive data is still valid, I'll see about preparing an archive if no one else does.

It will likely continue to work until they push a new client update. When that day inevitably comes, we will be SOL.

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On 1/1/2019 at 9:23 PM, i430VX said:

Steam still works without changing the date or -noverifyfiles for me

But if you try to run any 64-bit game, it will not run properly. For example 7 Days To Die Alpha 16.4 will show you "No Steam client" error, or Cities Skylines freezing with black screen.

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I don't know if it will work with this game, but... have you tried pasting Steam.dll in 7DTD's main folder? A while ago I have had a similar error appearing in a game called Jade Empire and that solved the issue, maybe it will work with that game too...

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6 hours ago, Andreasmir said:

But if you try to run any 64-bit game, it will not run properly. For example 7 Days To Die Alpha 16.4 will show you "No Steam client" error, or Cities Skylines freezing with black screen.

cannot confirm, I have no x64 games that are XP-compatible on steam

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I had posted a topic previously on this but it was taken down. If you check the Deep Thought forums at vogons you'll see a guide created by myself for running your Steam games without Steam.

The only thing you'd potentially need Steam or SteamCMD for is downloading your games and when those no longer work you can always download the games on another computer and copy them over. Currently Steam and SteamCMD (Requires TLS 1.2) but who knows what the next update will bring wether on the client or the backend.

 

Edited by DosFreak
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I'm fairly interested in this topic as well. And I also have a (supposedly) working XP Steam copy from 01.06.2018, when my system had crashed (and it remains like that since), but I would like to be able to update it as far as it is necessary/possible.

So, is it safe to post links here to exchange files? Or is it better to do it privately?

There are many projects out there which can deal with Steam in different ways. For example, there's a neat project called "Gaming Backup Multitool for Linux" https://gitlab.com/supremesonicbrazil/GBML
Also, check out this thread, may also be useful: "How to Download Older Versions of a Steam Game" https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=889624474

Btw, is the SteamCMD still working in XP, can anyone check? https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/SteamCMD

And, of course, don't forget to check "GOG connect" regularly :) https://www.gog.com/connect to use it as a partial "backup" of sorts. But GOG is also slowly drifting in the wrong direction since maybe the last year roughly, when they started to redesign their site and I had a conversation with their staff, who told me that they are not particularly interested in continuing supporting XP. Quite sad really. But at least you don't need any client to download the games while they are still playable.

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SteamCMD still works fine on XP. Check my vogons post.

You'll need to install and enable the TLS 1.2 update.  It's a PITA to use and you'll have to redownload all your games.

I personally don't see any issues discussing and sharing old versions of the Steam client but it depends on how the forums are moderated. Really though best not to deal with the Steam client since it's unecessary anyway. The community has pretty much solved most of the issues as far as Windows Steam games are concerned.

Edited by DosFreak
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4 minutes ago, DosFreak said:

I ppersonally don't see any issues discussing and sharing old versions of the Steam client but it depends on how the forums are moderated.

More of 'what Steam EULA says' in this case.

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4 hours ago, DosFreak said:

I had posted a topic previously on this but it was taken down. If you check the Deep Thought forums at vogons you'll see a guide created by myself for running your Steam games without Steam.

The only thing you'd potentially need Steam or SteamCMD for is downloading your games and when those no longer work you can always download the games on another computer and copy them over. Currently Steam and SteamCMD (Requires TLS 1.2) but who knows what the next update will bring wether on the client or the backend.

 

Does that work for Windows 98SE?

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So... Steam updated itself to a version released on January 4th, and... it still works, I'm able to still browse the Steam Store and download games I, uhm... bought. At this point I don't know how to explain why does it still work, and even still get new updates (despite having the -noverifyfiles parameter added to Steam's shortcut, which I think I can remove now), but I guess I shouldn't worry about it and just enjoy it while I still can. :w00t:

Edited by Tamris
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https://msfn.org/board/topic/177702-steam-for-xp-in-2019/?do=findComment&comment=1158592

Huh, that reminds me lf that time MS said they’d stop supporting MSE after eos but it still worked for a while.... maybe it’s a situation like that. Or maybe they’re just going to leave xp users on this one version forever until it eventually just stops working or something. It’ll be interesting to see what happens.

Edited by PJSim
Im on mobile and i forgot to quote Tamris lol, i hope this works, i’ll fix it on PC later
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If you check the \bin and \packages folder you'll see a cef folder and files. These are different based on the version of Windows. So XP and 7 files are different. They are all loaded by Steam.exe so if for example MS compiles their files for Vista+ and/or remove the XP specific files and/or change their backend servers to TLS 1.3 then that will likely kill it. If you care about your games remove your reliance on the Steam client. It's not that difficult to get rid of and still play your games.

Make sure you have the steam.cfg option set to prevent updates and/or block writes to the packages folder if you insist on using the Steam client.

Edited by DosFreak
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  • 4 weeks later...
1 minute ago, Tamris said:

Anyone else having an error that says "failed to load steamui.dll" after today's update or it's only me yet again..?

Im still on the January 4th release since mine is saying is "upto date"

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