I’ve seen a couple posts in the past few months, then Frank Ruperto made some blog comments on the subject and now, Mike Wolfe has posted an article regarding Microsoft stopping Windows and Windows Server support of older versions of Office.
I’m not going to copy Mike’s work, nor copy Microsoft’s Support Matrix, but I highly urge you to carefully review the following sources of information and start making plans as to how you want to move forward.
I know Mike stated:
I expect Microsoft 365 apps to continue to be available on Windows Server operating systems for the foreseeable future.
The issue here is there is nothing official, black on white, from Microsoft to support this statement. It may very well be the truth, but it may not. What is it they say about assumptions… 🙂 I’ve learnt not to expect ANYTHING from Microsoft anymore.
From what I understand when reviewing the matrix is that, as of Oct 2026, MS365 will only be supported on Windows 11 machines, all other versions of Office on all other versions of Windows will no longer be supported (and even sooner for certain versions of Office and Windows). Moreover, no flavor of Windows Server will support anything as of Oct 2026, not even MS365!
What does no longer “support”-ed mean exactly?
- No more updates? Even security updates?
- Office will no longer install as of that date?
- Will existing installation continue to work, or will they stop working altogether as of the specified dates?
I asked the Access Dev Team for some clarifications and was informed that it implies:
… (no longer “support”-ed) does not imply that Office will no longer run, but that there will be no further updates, and that if there are problems with the Office/Windows combination, that the issues won’t be addressed.
So, some excellent news there as at least existing installations will continue to work, for the time being.
Where does this leave us exactly, I’m not sure! When Microsoft announces the next Windows Server version, assuming there is another one, will it support MS365, or any future version of Office??? Will Microsoft do another 180? Or is this the end of Office support for on-prem servers and this is Microsoft’s way of forcing enterprise client to their cloud subscription products/services? I truly don’t know. What is worse is Microsoft isn’t clarifying things!!!
Let’s just hope Microsoft starts sharing there vision of the future soon!
Does Microsoft remains a good choice for the long term future of your business. You need to ask yourself the question! Is this the way you want to be able to run your business, with a 2-3 year window of certainty and everything beyond that is unknown? Is this the level of support you expect as a paying client? Is this what Microsoft calls ‘Support’-ing its clients/users?
Like I said before, given Microsoft’s past history, who knows what their official policy will be now and in the future. That being said, we and our customers are not leaving anything to chance and decided to migrate to open web based solutions. Platform migrations can take years so now is a good time to move in that direction.
You’re not going to get any argument from me on anything you’ve stated above!
I don’t get leaving clients in the unknown like this. As you state, it can take years to perform a migration so if companies wait they could truly find themselves in a pickle (as they say). Even if Microsoft does have a plan, the fact that they haven’t shared any of it and left clients in this state of unknown with the clock ticking down shows how little care/concern/respect they have for their clientele.
Welcome back, DevHut! The way I see it, for security and marketing reasons Microsoft will stop pushing updates to Windows Server and not allow any software to be installed on it. There’s more profit with M365 subscriptions on Windows workstations versus M365 via terminal services.