It seems we’re getting a glimpse at the next stick Microsoft will be using to push people to buy new PCs (we’re all rich, according to Microsoft) or upgrade to Windows 11. In a blog post extolling the virtues of a free upgrade from Windows 10 to 11, the company announced that with the end of support for Windows 10, Microsoft will also stop supporting Office applications on Windows 10, otherwise known as Office 365.
Lastly, Microsoft 365 Apps will no longer be supported after October 14, 2025, on Windows 10 devices. To use Microsoft 365 Applications on your device, you will need to upgrade to Windows 11.
↫ Microsoft’s Margaret Farmer
Of course, the applications won’t stop working on Windows 10 right away after that date, but Microsoft won’t be fixing any security issues, bugs, or other issues that might (will) come up. It reads like a threat to Windows users – upgrade by buying a new PC you probably can’t afford, or not only use an insecure version of Windows, but also insecure Office applications. I doubt it’ll have much of an impact on the staggering number of people still using Windows 10 – more than 60% of Windows users – so I’m sure Microsoft has more draconian plans up its sleeve to push people to upgrade.
That is it we are all switching to GNU/Linux. Nah, don’t worry about it, Windows 10 users will end up using Windows 10 and software that came with it for years to come. Including security patches provided by Microsoft. As for Windows 11 and its adoption. Maybe in a decade, till then we are just fine.
Beginning on October 25, GNU/Linux will no longer accept Windows refugees.
We are building a border wall.
No problem, no “Windows refugees” will be coming anyway.
We’ve been there before with the Windows XP EOL and the Windows 7 EOL: People will keep using their old Windows version until Chrome and Firefox drop support, then they will upgrade their PCs to a newer Windows version or buy a new PC and move on with their lives.
Average Joe isn’t going to become a born-again computer nerd and start experimenting with semi-obscure OSes when they can buy a new PC for 300 bucks or so. The few holdovers will stay with the old Windows version until their old version of Chrome starts throwing weird certificate errors, have the repair shop tell them their Windows version is ancient, and then eventually buy a refurbished Windows 11 PC.
Semi-related: I am convinced that Windows versions die when Chrome and Firefox drop support (or when the last ESU/LTSC ends, these two happen around the same time), not when mainstream EOL is reached, the graph below is pretty illustrative:
https://gs.statcounter.com/windows-version-market-share/desktop/worldwide/#monthly-202206-202307
This could mean Windows 10 will have a double-digit market share until Januaru 2029.
Also, note how that 9.55% of Windows 7 users still using Windows 7 in Jan 2023 didn’t migrate to Desktop Linux.
* January 2029
I agree, and it makes sense. For most people behind a firewall (NAT), the most concerning security issue with running an old OS is the web browser, and executing malicious downloaded files (assuming the virus scanner doesn’t catch it). If you keep a old system with an old OS and don’t install anything new, watch the files you download, and keep your web browser up to date, then life goes on fine with this system.
Every OS has security issues, some unknown and to be discovered, and others known by the hackers and not the world. So if you assume because your OS is completely updated your safe from hacking, your delusional. Of course an old OS has more known vulnerabilities, and if they get beyond the first layer (web browser or executing a file) it will be much easier to take advantage of a given vulnerability (of course they could just as easily use a 0-day exploit). That is where having an updated OS is a good thing, but at the same time updating has its own risks of breaking your current system. So it becomes a question, are you more likely to be hacked, or an update breaking things. In my experience it is usually the latter.
NAT is not a security mechanism, it’s a kludge to get around address shortages.
A firewall is a security mechanism, but is only of any practical use if you’re restricting access to listening services. Current end user systems don’t have any listening services by default anyway. Restricting outbound is more useful, but 99% of users never do that.
99.9% of end user devices get hacked either by bugs in client side software (eg outbound connections), or by user error (eg phishing). A firewall which only blocks inbound connections will do absolutely nothing in this scenario and is infact useless if there’s nothing that someone could connect to anyway.
Many end user devices are connected to third party networks (eg public wifi) where there’s no separate firewall between your device and the potentially hostile network, your device needs to stand on its own not rely on an external device.
NAT comes with an inbound-blocking firewall by default, so it is somewhat of a security mechanism. When behind a NAT, you can accept connections from the outside on a given port only if you have done port-mapping for that port, and Windows services don’t do that. Simply put, MS Blaster couldn’t spread to people behind a NAT because the port it targeted would be unreachable from the outside. As a result, the vulnerable Windows service listening on that port would be unreachable from the outside too, even if you had disabled the Windows Firewall.
That said, Windows can be pwned even with a full firewall (inbound and outbound blocking) when not patched due to the fact it does font handling in kernel space. So, you can have your browsers and media players fully updated and still get pwned by a frickin’ font. Personally, I wouldn’t be comfortable surfing the web with an unpatched Windows OS, but I guess other people are comfortable with it.
Actually this time it is a bit different. Microsoft installed an artificial barrier, preventing Windows 11 to run on most computers out there. On top of that Windows users prior to Windows 11 don’t seem to care all that much. This is new to me as in the past Windows users would go that extra mile and find a way to install and use latest Windows. This new generation, well it looks like they simply don’t care any more. Don’t have a strong opinion on it any more, likely due to using mobile computers anyway, most of the time.
People will eventually move when their no-longer-updated versions of Chrome and Firefox start throwing certificate errors, because that is going to make their computer “broken” in a major way. So, even people going by the “if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it” will have to fix their computers when this time comes.
If you want my personal guess, this won’t happen until after 2029, since Chrome and Firefox will keep supporting Windows 10 until 2029 for the shake of LTSC 2019, so my guess is that most Windows 10 users will keep using updated Chrome and Firefox on non-updated Windows 10 until then. Let’s hope no kernel-level font exploit happens for Windows 10 until then.
Indeed eventually, certainly not at the end of 2025, as Microsoft seems to suggest.
I would also add that the evolution of software bloat has slowed down somewhat and except for gaming most Win10 era HW still holds on pretty decently. In terms of sheer utility there’s much less incentive to update.
And why are you so sure that Microsoft 365 will keep working on GNU/Linux (with the latest security patches)? Microsoft 365 is more unsupported on GNU/Linux than it will be on Windows 10 after October 14, 2025.
Still a dick move by Microsoft don’t get me wrong, but no, people won’t move en masse to GNU/Linux because of it.
I meant Windows 10 users will be just fine, for years to come. Microsoft can’t afford a security related scandal of such proportions hence they will need to provide security patches until Windows 10 market share drops substantially. Basically till most of Windows 11 incompatible computers get EOLed. And that is realistically a time frame measured in at minimum in between 5 to 10 years! Not selling their Cloud to such huge group of consumers, that too is a big no-go.
Just a note on wording….please don’t succumb to MS marketingspeak. While w11 is undeniably an update over w10, clearly for many people it’s a downgrade. Let’s not leave MS the authority of the master grader od its products.
BTW this is another advantage of “perpetually licensed” versions of Office: Microsoft commits to a support timeline for those.
And yes, Microsoft Office 2024 is a thing and is a perpetual license. It will be supported until Oct 9, 2029.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/office/office-2024-and-office-ltsc-2024-faq-1c454a7d-3d0a-4139-b1bd-c61725ea436c
Go down to Support and System Requirements for Windows open first drop down there
***Important: Windows 10 is supported only until October 14, 2025.***
Notice this bit at bottom of that first drop down.
Yes that the FAQ for Microsoft Office 2024. After October 14, 2025 updates to the perpetual licensed version are also not promised to work on Windows 10.
Also the retail verson of Microsoft Office 2024 is under. the following support modern policy.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/topic/office-suites-for-individuals-and-families-4121881c-a319-41e8-8c42-230d17b44c43#bkmk_o24cons
kurkosdr so no support for retail version of Microsoft Office 2024 is not until Oct 9 2029. Modern support policy says Microsoft must give you 12 months notification of termination of support and that it.
To have until the Oct 9 2029 support you have to have bought the Microsoft Office LTSC 2024 version that one has the fixed support policy. Yes even if you have bought the Microsoft Office LTSC 2024 version that has support to Oct 9 2029 they are still remove MS Windows 10 support from it as Oct 14 2025.
kurkosdr Microsoft has been making it progressively harder to what people would call perpetually licensed versions of MS Office. Yes MS Office 2021 retail was the last MS Office retail under fixed support contract.
Microsoft MSOFT10259231 Office LTSC Standard 2024 CSP Perpetual License
Yes above is what MS Product descriptions look like if you bought the one that has support until Oct 9 2029. But even having this the FAQ tells you windows 10 is not support after Oct 14 2025 for updates to this version of office released after that date.
I can see a lot of people going I paid for retail version of MS Office 2024 everything good when this is not fixed/Perpetual license. And I can see a lot of people doing what you said thinking that I have the LTSC version the Windows 10 change is not going to effect me when it absolutely will. Yes a term change in the 2024 fixed support agreement LTSC has is only having to give 12 months notice of dropping a supported platform and that all platforms don’t have to be supported for the full length of the agreement.
Yes 2024 was a lot of major Microsoft licensing changes.
The second link you shared seems to suggest that Office 2021 was under the modern support lifecycle, 2019 was the last under the fixed lifecycle, and 2019 leaves support along with Windows 10.
First things first: You don’t have to randomly prefix your sentences with “yes” or “no”.
Don’t do this:
Do this instead:
If you want to add a “yes” or “no” in front of a sentence, you can, but it has to be followed by a comma, and even then it can only be used sparingly where you want to add emphasis, otherwise it makes the text overbearing to the reader.
—
Also, you don’t have to prefix sentences with the name of the person you are referring to:
The reader knows you are referring to me because you are replying to my comment.
—
And one final thing: using quotes when required would be nice, for example:
Otherwise, it throws the reader out of sync, much like forgetting to quote literals in a programming language or forgetting to add parentheses in math.
With that out of the way, Microsoft doesn’t say they won’t support Microsoft Office 2024 on Windows 10 after October 14, 2025 with the following sentence:
They merely remind you Windows 10 is supported only until October 14, 2025. Office and Windows are on different support schedules.
The 12 months thing is for products following the “rolling release” model, much like Windows 10 (which had no published EOL until Windows 11 arrived). Microsoft can’t legally back out from a published EOL.
How exactly? They will sell you a perpetually licensed version of Microsoft Office, and it’s not even hard to find or purchase. If they don’t release a new perpetually licensed version of Microsoft Office before the current one reaches EOL, then I will agree they are dropping perpetual licensing of Microsoft Office. But until then, nah.
Kurkosdr there is a problem.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/products/microsoft-office-2007
Long term support version/LTSC of MS office use to be 10 years+ it is now 5 years.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/products/office-2024
These pages are the LTSC or fixed.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/policies/modern
“”””Continuity and migration
For products governed by the Modern Lifecycle Policy, Microsoft will provide a minimum of 12 months’ notification prior to ending support if no successor product or service is offered—excluding free services or preview releases.
For products under existing lifecycle policies (such as the Fixed Lifecycle Policy), Microsoft will continue to provide servicing and support for a fixed amount of time. Products that have already launched with existing lifecycle policies will continue to be supported according to the published retirement dates.””””
Yes published retirement dates apply to Fixed Lifecycle Policy not Modern Lifecycle Policy. Key thing here is no successor product. Remember when Microsoft ended MS Works when it was made of of MS Office products MS Office was not classed as successor. Also Modern Lifecycle does not promise that when they release a new version of MS Office that they cannot be sorry if you want updates you have to buy new version right now.
MS Office one time purchase is the Modern License. LTSC is the Fixed license version. Microsoft did not have split the license this way back in Office 2007/2010 you one time purchase was a 5 year fixed license. LTSC was 10 year fixed license.
Microsoft is making the perpetual licensing last fewer and fewer years.
“””The 12 months thing is for products following the “rolling release” model, much like Windows 10 (which had no published EOL until Windows 11 arrived). Microsoft can’t legally back out from a published EOL.”””
O yes they can they did it with MS Works back in the day. The 12 months thing is not for rolling release it would not be a problem if it was just that. The difference between one time purchase MS office and LTSC MS Office shows this. People don’t read the licensing. Change from one time purchase MS office being fixed license to modern license is a big thing that has slipped under a lot of people radar. The addition to the fixed license terms that a platform support could be removed with 12 months notice was another big change that slipped under the radar of most.
I see people waking up to the change when some update after October 14 causes there Windows 10 MS Office 2024 to have major issues either due to not getting updates so being incompatible with versions of MS Office with the updates or the updates being applied and breaking MS Office 2024 on Windows 10. One or the other will happen if Microsoft follows their normal model.
Modern license does not promise the successor license will be free. So you have bought the one time purchase MS office and Microsoft releases a successor they can get away with saying you have 12 months to buy a new one time purchase license because its the modern license. This is the slow push to the subscription model.
Microsoft won’t back out of a published EOL and haven’t done so, you can read pages whatever way you want (since English isn’t your strong suit anyway) but it won’t happen.
The support period used to be 10 years and is now 5, but you are getting those 5 years, that’s what they promised in their perpetual license, that’s what they’ll deliver.
Looks like I have to upgrade to that ad ridden crap that I paid for. Makes me happy that a lot of people moved to phones instead of PCs.
School is still out on English grammer. . Please , no more Windows refugees. We never asked for them and don’t need them. They will probably support SystemD anyway.
Yeah, that evil SystemD, who wants service management so we can boot services in parallel with dependency management in our modern multi-core CPUs? Plus, it makes someone’s dumpster-dived single-core Pentium 4 box slower, and we can’t have that, can we?
Libreoffice?