Steamworks Common Redistributables "Corrupt Download"

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yanni 24 Jul @ 1:11pm

Every time i try to launch a game, steamworks common redistributables is being installed, hangs at 29% and then steam opens and gives a "Corrupt download" popup error

OK. Simply put, Steam is using a new file compression system and now game updates might be pretty difficult on older versions

Last edited by yanni; 25 Jul @ 9:11am

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Originally posted by Ettanin:

As of May 21st, 2025, Valve has updated their compression algorithm to be more CPU and I/O efficient.
This change is not compatible with old clients that could still run on Windows 7 and future content changes will be made using this compression algorithm, resulting in a loss of access to downloads and updates.

As Valve has ended support for Windows 7 since January 1st, 2024, and therefore won't update their client for the use of Windows 7, your officially supported options are:
* Upgrade to Windows 10 (End of Life by October 2025 unless enrolled into ESU)
* Upgrade to Windows 11
* Install Linux Mint and play Windows only games using Proton

If Win10/Win11 is not an option, consider installing Linux Mint. It's free and Proton works with a good portion of games on Steam.

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Showing 1-11 of 11 comments

Shotgun 24 Jul @ 1:39pm

What OS?

yanni 24 Jul @ 1:43pm

windows 7

Shotgun 24 Jul @ 1:51pm

Yup, Valve killed Steam on W7. I have a W7 box for older games, and whenever one gets updated now, it fails on the download due to the new compression system. Same for the Steamworks Common Redistributables.

You can still launch games by temporarily going into offline mode, however. But that too is probably a temporary fix. There's a lot of comments on old games by confused people who don't understand why their retro boxes and W7 VMs no longer work. This is going to snowball more and more as people start realizing why they're getting these errors and become upset that they can't play some older games anymore.

I'm really surprised by this move from Valve. They could've kept a legacy content delivery system in place to not mess with compatibility.

inb4 "u are must get Win11 saar is very good OS for happy gamer & much security feature"

yanni 24 Jul @ 1:58pm

is it steam or windows that's using a new compression system?

Shotgun 24 Jul @ 2:03pm

Steam.

There's a ghetto way to get around the issue for some games, which is downloading them using Steam on W10+ and then transferring the folder over. This will also probably be "patched" in the near future. But I'm not sure this fix also works for the Steamworks Common Redistributables issue, haven't tried.

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Ettanin 24 Jul @ 2:06pm

Last edited by Ettanin; 24 Jul @ 2:08pm

yanni 24 Jul @ 2:08pm

I've copied steamworks common redistributables from my other steam installation on windows 11, but this didn't fix anything, this problem came out of nowhere, I can clear the download cache but I have to do that multiple times so I am looking for an alternative solution