The YouTuber ‘nicl83’ used an old DVD of Half Life 2 to install the latest version of Steam. In a video, he shows how he went about it.
The cult shooter Half-Life 2 was released on November 16, 2004, making it almost 19 years old now.
However, this did not stop YouTuber nicl 83 from digging up the old DVD version of the shooter and making an attempt: He set out to install the current version of the Steam client with it.
Here you can see the video by nicl83:
For the update, a few detours and a lot of patience are needed
A small note: The video was released on September 21, 2020, meaning the YouTuber wanted to install the then-current Steam version. At that time, support for Windows 7 had only been discontinued for 9 months, but Steam itself continues to support Windows 7.
How does the YouTuber proceed? nicl83 initially starts with Windows XP to install Steam from the Half-Life 2 DVD. The YouTuber states that he achieved the ‘best results’ with the Windows version.
He also gives the additional hint that one can simply skip the installation of the game itself.
After that, the Steam update starts and initially fails. However, nicl83 is not discouraged by that and continues. Several failures and restarts follow. Eventually, the YouTuber reaches a point where he still has a connection to Valve’s servers but cannot perform any further updates.
In the next step, nicl83 copies the incomplete installation into a virtual Windows 7 (VM), where the update finally works. Here, the YouTuber can actually update the Steam version to the latest version and log into his account.
How does the community react? Under the video, people mainly react nostalgically in the comments and remember the old user interfaces:
- Hayden Bourgeois: ‘Man, I miss the old user interface. The one used today is modern and generally pleasant, but the old green version is so nostalgic’
- LeonixNN: ‘I miss these old Steam designs so much… oh, why don’t they make official “retrospective” designs for Steam?’
- AESTHETIC: ‘Man, that brings back memories, it’s kind of crazy how fast time flies.’
When asked why the YouTuber did this, nicl83 explains: He did it to show that it works. One would probably not expect such an old version of the Steam client to still work – but in fact, it is possible.
If you play a lot on Steam, you might also be interested in this list: The 5 largest survival MMOs on Steam in February 2023.
