In a surprise – but welcomed – move, Microsoft announced yesterday that the office support lifecycle for Office 365 ProPlus on Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2016 are extended to January 2023 (EOL of Windows 8.1) and October 2025 respectively. In addition, Office 2016 connectivity support for Office 365 services will be extended to October 2023 (was 2020).

Other announced changes in product support lifecycles were extending Windows 10 Enterprise & Education support from 18 to 30 months. Also, for Windows 7 Professional & Enterprise, paid security updates (Extended Security Updates) will be offered, and those Windows 7 ESU devices will be supported through January 2023 – parallel to Windows 8.1 – with Office 365 ProPlus.

The intention of these changes is to provide customers more flexibility in adopting modern desktops on the client end (i.e. Windows 10) and upgrade their Office suite, preferably to the susbscription-based ProPlus. The release cadence of the cloud has significant impact on organizations, which were told in February to keep in line with product releases as a lot of product support lifecycles were going to end in 2020.

Extending those dates not only gives them more flexibility to plan and upgrade, but also might prevent organizations to do only to the minimum, which is likely the reason many organizations are still on Windows 7 and why it took many organizations a long time to get rid of Windows XP.

The following list represents products retiring or reaching the end of support in 2020. Upon retirement or end of support, there will be no new security updates, non-security updates, free or paid assisted support options or online technical content updates. Go here to learn about Fixed and Modern Lifecycle policies and service packs. This 5-year term is aligned with the support model for Office 2016 for Mac. Refer to the Microsoft Lifecycle Support policies for more specifics about support for Office 2019. What are the system requirements for running Office 2019 on Mac?

As of October 13, 2020, only these versions of Office are supported for connecting to Office 365 (and Microsoft 365) services:

• Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise (previously named Office 365 ProPlus)
• Microsoft 365 Apps for business (previously named Office 365 Business)
• Office 2019, such as Office Professional Plus 2019
• Office 2016, such as Office Standard 2016

Examples of Office 365 services include Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and OneDrive for Business.

For Microsoft 365 Apps, you must be using a supported version. For a list of which versions are currently supported, see Update history for Microsoft 365 Apps.

Important

We won’t take any active measures to block other versions of the Office client, such as Office 2013, from connecting to Office 365 services, but these older clients may encounter performance or reliability issues over time.

Impact of using older Office clients to connect to Office 365 services

After October 13, 2020, ongoing investments to our cloud services will not take into account older Office clients. Over time, these Office clients may encounter performance or reliability issues. Organizations that use these older clients will almost certainly face an increased security risk and may find themselves out of compliance depending upon specific regional or industry requirements.

Therefore, administrators should update older Office clients to versions of Office supported for connecting to Office 365 services.

Office 2016 For Mac Support Lifecycle

Upgrade resources available to administrators

We recommend that you upgrade older Office clients to a subscription version of the Office client, such as Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise. The most up-to-date subscription versions of the Office client are always supported connecting to Office 365 services.

We provide various services to help you upgrade to subscription versions of the Office client. The following list provides some examples of resources that are available:

• Microsoft FastTrack, for migration and deployment assistance from Microsoft experts.
• App Assure, for assistance from Microsoft with application compatibility issues.
• Deployment guide for Microsoft 365 Apps, for technical documentation.
• Product lifecycle dashboard and upgrade readiness dashboard, for users of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (current branch).
• Readiness Toolkit for Office add-ins and VBA, to help identify potential issues with add-ins and VBA macros used in your organization.

Upcoming changes related to connectivity to Office 365 services

Retirement of TLS 1.0 and 1.1

After October 15, 2020, you must be using at least TLS 1.2 to connect to Office 365 services. For more information, see TLS 1.0 and 1.1 deprecation for Office 365 and Preparing for TLS 1.2 in Office 365 and Office 365 GCC.

Basic authentication with Exchange Online

End Of Support For Office 2016 For Mac 日本語

There are some changes planned related to the use of Basic Authentication with Exchange Online. For more information, see Basic Authentication and Exchange Online – April 2020 Update.

Retirement of Skype for Business Online

Skype for Business Online will be retired on July 31, 2021. For more information, see Skype for Business Online retirement.

Additional information about connectivity to Office 365 services

Office 2016 For Mac Support

• Versions of Office 2019 and Office 2016 will be supported for connecting to Office 365 (and Microsoft 365) services until October 2023.
• Connecting to Office 365 services using Office 2016 for Mac isn’t supported. That’s because Office 2016 for Mac reached its end of support on October 13, 2020.
• This information about connecting to Office 365 services also applies to Project and Visio.
• This information about connecting to Office 365 services does not apply to InfoPath 2013 or SharePoint Designer 2013.
• For end of support dates for different versions of Office on various versions of Windows, see the Office configuration support matrix.
• To discuss or learn more about end of support for Office versions, visit Microsoft Office End of Support on the Microsoft Tech Community.