End of support for MS 365 Office programs under Windows 10 also in October

We have already reported several times that support for Windows 10 will end on October 14 this year and what this means for users with computers that are not approved for Windows 11.

Microsoft has now clarified in a blog post that the end of support also applies to Microsoft 365 Apps (formerly "Office 365"). It states: "Microsoft 365 apps will no longer be supported on Windows 10 devices after October 14, 2025. To use Microsoft 365 apps on your device, you will need to upgrade to Windows 11."

No mention of having to

At first glance, this sounds rather harsh and gives the impression that the Office programs, i.e. Word, Excel, and PowerPoint installed locally on the computer as part of an MS 365 subscription, will no longer run at all on Windows 10 from this date. Whether it's just Microsoft's typical clumsy communication or deliberate scaremongering, this is certainly not true. On the associated support page, the company repeats the statement that the Microsoft 365 app will no longer be supported after the end of Windows 10 support, but immediately qualifies this with "To avoid performance and reliability issues, we recommend that you upgrade to Windows 11". There is no more talk of "must" here.

The Office 2019, 2021 and 2024 one-time license versions are also unlikely to be affected. On the aforementioned support page, they are all listed as compatible with Windows 10 without any further restrictions. However, support for Office 2019 ends regularly on October 14, 2025, – regardless of the Windows version –. Feature updates – and these are likely to be the main focus of the announcement – are only available for apps with a Microsoft 365 subscription anyway; Microsoft will also release security updates for even older versions if necessary. For example, Office 2016, which had long since fallen out of support, only received a security update in December 2024 (see release notes for Microsoft Office security updates).

Support extension for Office too?

It is unclear whether a paid support extension for Windows 10, which is being offered to private users as well as corporate customers for the first time, will also include the Office packages.

We think so: The wording used by those responsible in the blog article linked at the beginning is clearly intended to massively unsettle users of Windows 10 who have so far been unwilling to upgrade. The impression is certainly not entirely unconsciously created that Office will no longer work in this system from October, when Windows 10 support ends. Instead of such a dubious (not to use a clearer word) campaign, Microsoft would certainly be better advised to relax the sometimes incomprehensible hardware requirements for Windows 11 to encourage more than the 37 percent (source: Statcounter, Dec. 2024) of Windows 11 users to upgrade. However, there are still no signs of this, on the contrary.

(swi)