Valve has announced that as of January 1, 2026, Steam for 32-bit based versions of Windows will no longer be supported. Currently, the only version of Windows 32-bit that Valve actively supports is Windows 10, but that will no longer be the case as of next year.
Interestingly, Valve says that there are only 0.01% of Steam users that are still using a 32-bit version of Windows 10, and so this end of support date won’t impact most people. Additionally, although the Steam client will no longer be supported with new features or fixes, it will likely continue to work on 32-bit Windows for the foreseeable future.
“As of January 1 2026, Steam will stop supporting systems running 32-bit versions of Windows,” says a Steam support FAQ. “Windows 10 32-bit is the only 32-bit version that is currently supported by Steam and is only in use on 0.01% of systems reported through the Steam Hardware Survey. Windows 10 64-bit will still be supported and 32-bit games will still run. Existing Steam Client installations will continue to function for the near term on Windows 10 32-bit but will no longer receive updates of any kind including security updates.”
It’s important to stress that Valve is not ending support for Steam on Windows 10 for most users. A majority of Windows 10 PCs are 64-bit based, and Steam will continue to be fully supported on that platform, even though its end of support date is looming. Valve has not announced an end of support date for Steam on Windows 10 64-bit.
Valve says ending support for 32-bit versions of Windows is required as core features in Steam rely on system drivers and libraries that are no longer supported in 32-bit versions of Windows. That also means that all future versions of Steam will be 64-bit only, which might be a problem for retro gamers using older PCs.
It’s also worth noting that while Microsoft still supports 32-bit versions of Windows 10, Windows 11 is only available in 64-bit flavor. So it makes sense for Valve to slowly move over to only supporting 64-bit going forward, especially considering there are so few users left that are still using a 32-bit powered system.
via Neowin
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