Microsoft today announced the end of support for Office 2010 and Office 2016 for Mac. From today, Microsoft will not be releasing bug fixes, or security updates for these products. Also, Microsoft won’t offer technical support for these products. If you haven’t already started the Office 2010 migration process, you need to start now. Also, to use services like Exchange Online and SharePoint Online, you need Microsoft 365 Apps, Office 2019, or Office 2016.
The Office 2016 installations are apart of an Office 365 subscription for the client. To install Office 2016, on each Mac I went to portal.office.com and signed into the user's Office 365 account using their credentials. I then downloaded the Office 2016 installer by clicking the Install Office button on the Office365 homepage. Microsoft discontinued its two popular products, Office 2010 for Windows and Office 2016 for Mac. An official announcement says that the software has today received their final updates, and won't get them any longer.
“While we will not take any active measures to block legacy versions of the Office client from connecting, these older clients will fall out of step with the service enhancements and may present performance and/or reliability issues over time,” said Jared Spataro, Corporate Vice President for Microsoft 365.
Following two options are available for people who want to upgrade from Office 2010.
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.
- Microsoft 365 Apps, the subscription version of Office that comes with many Office 365 (and Microsoft 365) enterprise and business plans.
- Office 2019, which is sold as a one-time purchase and available for one computer per license.
Source: Microsoft
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.
Office 2016 Eol
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.
Microsoft Office For Mac Support
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.
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