End of support for older Office and Windows Server versions pile on the pain for admins Windows 10's free support has shuffled off this mortal coil for most customers – but that's merely the headline act in Microsoft's October support massacre. Older versions of Office and Windows Server have also been shown the door. Support for Office 2019 (including Office 2016) and Exchange Server 2019 flatlined on October 14 …
You got lucky! There are enough out there who won't survive this. And some make it even tough not supported... I tried, in Lab, Server 2016 with Ex2016 in place upgrade to Server 2022 (with adjusting the exchange services ahead, and restoring the state after). And it survived. And others where I expected to work fine borked.
You did create a backup, didn't you? And tested restore before? :D
I've generally found that in-place Windows Server upgrades work OK these days (but yes, obviously take a backup first!). One to watch out for is Exchange - that doesn't support upgrade of the underlying OS and doing so will break it, so that's a lift and shift migration.
We have customers who did switch to Office 2024. Works quite good, and in some parts better than the 365 variant. Looks like someone there check a bit closer on what makes sense, whereas the 365 variant clearly runs under "don't give a shit"...
Oh, and Office 2024 is a "non online" Variant, you need to have the KMS running.
>> Oh, and Office 2024 is a "non online" Variant, you need to have the KMS running.
Office 2024 LTSC comes with MAK licensing as well, which is "online".
To the OP: Yes, Microsoft sells Office LTSC along with all their other licensed stuff. Can't understand the upvotes you're getting for insinuating anything else.
Because a KMS is online too. But only for the activation, like MAK. And then no internet needed on the client, that is done by the KMS with strict "you are only allowed to talk to these MS-hosts through that ports, and only via this proxy which logs everything". Unless you have a "special" KMS.
Companies always splurge for the latest and greatest, but Office 2010 still does 99% of what you actually need, and 2010/2013 don't bug you if you don't register. You'll get a reminder, but you can work.
Given that companies have already paid the license, they can go for Office 2013 and save themselves from the upgrade treadmill.
Which they won't do, of course.
My company’s major failure was that we created software that could not be hacked, so users didn’t keep paying us for new versions to solve problems because they never saw any problems or any hacking. My company is dead because no money kept coming in.
I was inspired by Microsoft having the same problem with early software days originally, but now Microsoft is completely redesigned and getting hacked, and they are making a lot more money.
Sounds like the business plan also used by the "developer" of my majorly-used, industry-specific software package. $$$/year "maintenance", yet somehow every. single. update. that fixed bugs also came with *new* bugs. Every single time. Something working before stopped working, something that was broken might have been fixed properly.
Got wise to that scheme way over a decade ago and canceled the "maintenance" contract.
Still running Office 2010 and I still have one spare license should I need to install it for any reason.
It actually does everything that I need and is retained because of my M$ wed customers.
I transitioned to Open Office / Libre Office in 2007 when the abortion that is the ribbon arrived.
The last Office 2010 patch was released over five years ago, and the last Office 2013 patch was released in 2023.
I'll let you figure out how many published, open / unpatched security vulnerabilities there are.
Keep in mind that there are plenty of unpublished ones because out-of-support software doesn't qualify for bug bounties, so they're more valuable on the black market.
Office 2013:
https://vulmon.com/searchpage?q=microsoft+office+2013&sortby=bydate
Office 2010:
https://vulmon.com/searchpage?q=microsoft+office+2010&sortby=bydate
Acutally Office 2000 is enough. First version with "MSI" installer, so you better get the whole CD in c:\install or you're f up. Apart from that: Access is limited in Windows 11 due to relying on too old ODB components.., and Outlook does not work due to relying on Internet Explorer 4/5 components (which I was too lazy to get when I tested it). I still have my "Admin-Package with SP3 and all updates after SP3", and the office assistants "Dolphin" and "Office Lady" from the Japanese Office 2000. Oh, and my video includes the XYZ Chart feature still missing in Libreoffice at about 10:50...
In best Lionel Hutz voice
"The use of the word "Perpetual" licence in terms of Software is the most blatant case of false advertising since my last case against the writers of The Never Ending Story!"
Man, I wish someone would actually take a swing at this. Any Ambulance Chasers out there looking for a quick pay-off? Anyone?
I worked for an aerospace company, we used various state of the art analysis programs. We didn't mind paying for annual support, but we did insist that there were "escrow" arrangements where if the software company went bust, their products were available for us to adopt/continue using. This was pretty much to satisfy CAA/FAA record-keeping requirements, we may have had to reproduce design calculations. I could see spreadsheets falling under this umbrella for some organisations.
Why the fuck have they started including all their game patches in the monthly security update summary sent to people on their IT security/admin mail lists.
It's absolutely unhinged to send out emails that go from Azure Confidential Compute VM to Gears POP! ..... Microsoft JDBC Driver 12.8 for SQL Server> Zoo Tycoon Friends.
I did have to laugh that Azure Monitor Agent immediately leads to DOOM (2019).
Microsoft SharePoint Server 2019 > Fallout Shelter seems fitting.
Absolute madness!
I'll say it again:
If you're running products anywhere near their EOL and don't have a full and tested migration plan already in action (up to a year or more before)... then I'm sorry but you're simply not cybersecurity-compliant, I'm amazed that your insurance companies would bother to cover you, and you're really failing - as a business - to stay up to date, plan and secure your business-critical systems.
There is no excuse. This will never stop. You will need to keep doing this over and over and over again until the day you retire, and then someone else will need to keep on doing it. Every 3, 4, 5 years. Every year in some instances.
So I have little sympathy. I mean, none of us WANT to have to upgrade everything all the time. It's messy, costly, breaks stuff, and the NUMBER of arguments you have to have with finance department, etc. are never-ending. But you can't NOT do that now. Those days have passed. Still running some air-gapped thing from the 90's? Then you're on your own. But still running obsolete Office / OS on Internet-connected computers with access to business critical data used by ordinary users? Sorry... no sympathy. And I would not want to be the person insuring you against a cybersecurity incident.
It's just not acceptable any more. Upgrade. Or keep VERY quiet, cross your fingers, and accept the consequences of that decision.
Oh, is not like the linux kernel does not change every few months and leaces previous versions unsupported.
Is not like the LTS kernel does not stops getting backported security updates after 3 years
Is not like the linux civil infrastructure project does not stop patching their kernel after 10years
Is not like redhat stops supporting their distro after 10+3 years.
Is not like ububtu stops supporting their LTS after 7+3 years (aprox)
Get a grip. Every single software, open,closed "whatevur" from every single company HAS to stop supporting older versions at some point. And every company that charges for support for software charges through the nose for the latter years.
Let the counterexamples rain on the thread
The trouble is businesses have their own natural cadence, which tends to be very different to the cadence many in the IT industry, like Microsoft, think is appropriate.
As I have noted previously, we can expect MS to start talking up W12 and talking down W11, just at the time you are wanting to take a well earnt breather from a job well done (W10 to W11).
The issue isn’t keeping your existing IT uptodate, it’s that MS (and others) deliberately break it by introducing step changes that require wholesale IT upheaval and replacement. When MS sold products and included 10 years of support in the price, the ripe out and replace business model made sense, however, in the world of subscriptions it doesn’t..
Again, I know several people who just keep using the same old version of Microsoft Office, maybe they put it into a VM, maybe they use it in a machine they keep offline, but if all you need is Word and Excel and specifically you don't want newer versions of Excel to break your spreadsheets, why upgrade?
Microsoft had made Excel so borkable the main reason some people don't wanna upgrade is changes to Excel in newer versions and no I am not joking.
Too many SMEs have built critical workflows (usually billing an accounting related) on Excel spreadsheets so flimsy they do not work with a different Excel version. Updating the Excel magic to work with a different version is not possible because anyone that understood how that deep magic works has left long ago.
Micros~1 is only partially responsible for that.
It was Office 2021 and 365 that really broke Excel. Write anything slightly complex in 365 or 2024 and expect some parts not to work on 2019 or older. So design something for 2019 and previous and expect someone to forward it to someone else who only uses 365 and so gets an unsupported function or scripting error….
>” Updating the Excel magic to work with a different version is not possible because anyone that understood how that deep magic works has left long ago.”
Having picked up some ancient Excel spreadsheets, the biggest problem isn’t the formula and scripts as these can generally be worked out. The issue is the magic numbers.
Got a kicking because one budget setting spreadsheet I took over contained totals for monthly salary costs, but no reference to how the numbers were derived and the source from which they were taken, hence I could not say what the effect of staff changes would be. I subsequently discovered the figures had been taken from the relevant contract, but the workbook used to create the contract numbers no longer existed…
"Microsoft had made Excel so borkable the main reason some people don't wanna upgrade is changes to Excel in newer versions and no I am not joking."
This. Even as IT staff at work for a large bank (hence AC) I just want Excel to bloody work. I couldn't give a monkey's for whatever stupid features they've put in.
Some update has recently hosed Excel on my work laptop, causing it to glitch out visually (it will go blank and you can't see any cells, or the UI ribbon disappears randomly) and always require closing and opening again. It worked fine last month, so I presume it's one of MS crap updates.
I've never used Outlook but one of my business partners who does, or did until this week, said that they've essentially discontinued the client. Instead the new version retains the mail on their server and is little more than a front end to web mail. Thus MS has to have the passwords to your various mail accounts. Sorry, no thanks, and hello Thunderbird! (I've been using that for a long time anyway, and by now it's fairly usable again, after the abominable v115 "Supernova" explosion.)
Office 365 is a sloppy mess. I don't know if it's intentional enshittification or they just have lost control over decades of badly-documented spaghetti code. Office 2010 still works and is more stable; that may have been its high point. The one real advantage to 365 is that Excel has a much improved lookup function. When the program bothers to run. And I HATE that opening a file when there are already open windows in that app causes an old window to open too. There used to be a workaround or two but they've patched them out, ensuring that the bug always manifests.
Posting anonymously but I spent a couple of hours trying to get outlook 2019 to talk to an office 365 mailbox before realising that it was out of support and now blocked by MS. Ended up having to use the abortion that is "new" outlook working so that user could see the 3 different mailboxes he uses.
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