At the start of this year, Microsoft announced that, alongside the end of support for Windows 10, it would also end support for Office 365 (it’s called Microsoft 365 now but that makes no sense to me) on Windows 10 around the same time. The various Office applications would continue to work on Windows 10, of course, but would no longer receive bug fixes, security plugs, and so on. Well, it seems Microsoft experienced some pushback on this one, because it just extended this end-of-support deadline for Office 365 on Windows 10 by an additional three years.
To help maintain security while you transition to Windows 11, Microsoft will continue providing security updates for Microsoft 365 Apps on Windows 10 for three years after Windows 10 reaches end of support. These updates will be delivered through the standard update channels, ending on October 10, 2028.
↫ Microsoft support article
The reality is that the vast majority of Windows users are still using Windows 10, and despite countless shady shenanigans and promises of “AI” bliss, there’s relatively little movement in the breakdown between Windows 10 and Windows 11 users. As such, the idea that Microsoft would just stop fixing security issues and bugs in Office on Windows 10 a few months from now seemed preposterous from the outset, and that seems to have penetrated the walls of Microsoft’s executives, too.
The real question now is: will Microsoft extend the same courtesy to Windows 10 itself? The clock is ticking, there’s only a few months left to go before support for Windows 10 ends, leaving 60-70% of Windows users without security fixes and updates. If they blinked with Office, why wouldn’t they blink with Windows 10, too? Who dares to place a bet?
Tactically it’s an interesting announcement, basically given that MS is moving more and more 365 users off traditional desktop towards the web runtime, they are basically saying join us on M365 and we’ll help keep you safe even if you remain on Win 10.
I can’t help to think this will be attractive to many users despite being somewhat commercially insidious. Users basically have an offer to allow them to retain their hardware investment while remaining safe online, you “just” have to be using Edge and M365.
Oddly, it all reminds me of Apple.
> MS is moving more and more 365 users off traditional desktop towards the web runtime
If they can actually manage to pull that off without losing tons of features from the full-fat Windows versions of Excel, Powerpoint etc., this would be potentially be great for getting newer Office versions to run in Linux.
But the new web-based version of Outlook is not giving me hope that they can.
It was going to be hard to keep charging subscription fees for Office 365 while refusing to provide updates. So this is not surprising in the least.
Windows on the other hand does not attract subscription fees. At least, it does not now. When Windows 10 support ends, you can subscribe to ESU (Extended Security Updates) which costs $30 for a year. Hey, look at that. Windows has been converted into a subscription. Microsoft is going to hate that.
You will notice that Office 2021 and even Office 2024 remain unsupported on Windows 10. You can still pay full price for Office 2024 today of course but support ends with Windows 10 in October (unless you migrate).
The financial incentive pushes Microsoft to extend support for Office 365. Those same incentives push them NOT to extend free Windows 10 support or support for non-subscription Office.
“Microsoft 365” is more than just Office and already bundles in Windows Defender which has quite a “security updates” vibe. I could see ESU getting rolled into the enterprise version of Microsoft 365. Enterprise prices are negotiated and putting a price tag on ESU tells businesses how much “value” they are getting if it does get rolled in. You can get Microsoft 365 practically free if you spend enough money on Azure. Same story. The sticker price of Microsoft 365 signals how much of a “discount” you are getting on the cloud.
For us little people, I don’t think Microsoft will budge. Migrate or subscribe. Either way, Microsoft wins.
Question to the audience: how feasible is it to keep running unsupported version of windows in 2025? Is it at all doable and for a responsible admin to do so even in a small organization?
dsmogor,
I don’t maintain windows networks anymore, but it’s an interesting question. Remote exploitation can be mitigated quite effectively as long as the computer is behind a firewall and the internet connected software is kept up to date, or even better an isolated network. If you trust your staff, and have an air gap, then the vulnerabilities might be fairly irrelevant to you. However if your windows computer is directly on the internet, or else you expect malicious parties to be present around your network & computer, then the risk of running an unsupported OS is very high because eventually there could be publicly known exploits that aren’t being patched.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_Red_(computer_worm)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EternalBlue
An interesting twist is to ask whether a 3rd party security patching service is a good alternative to MS support. As long as they keep on top of known vulnerabilities and patch them out, then in theory it’s not a bad mitigation. I don’t know how well this works in practice since I haven’t tried it.
https://www.pcworld.com/article/2456251/windows-10-will-no-longer-receive-updates-from-october-2025-change-that-with-this-tool.html
@Alfman Good response.
I do currently run a small business network, small by corporate IT standards but big enough to keep me busy, mostly MS, a smidge of Linux and one sad and lonely MacOS which is the pretty one stuck sitting in the corner luring clients!
While I think it’s achievable to go locked down with 3rd party support and good network hardware, whether it’s viable is another issue. It greatly increase costs, and it would turn my solo job into 2 or maybe even 3 people. At least until the AIs take over! Unlike some of my more cynical counterparts, I’m pretty dynamic at applying pat5ches, and excluding one major event that was caused by a senior executive launching malicious software using Admin credentials(Not something anybody can actually prevent if someone senior enough wants that bad to be identified as an idiot) I had very very few problems. Of course I keep a couple of canaries on the earlier release channels, but even they have barely had an issue.
This would be a requirement for any org to extend their windows 10 support and probably is fairly cost neutral (as the OS is no longer a moving target).
Expect an announcement soon that continued windows 10 updates cost $30 per seat per year like they did with XP.
Adurbe,
Agreed.
It’s an ironic business model, make newer operating systems bad enough to convince customers pay more for older ones.
I do sometimes wonder what operating systems would look like if they had a different model. Imagine if instead of constantly having to chase new features to market, we would see value in using a system with constant ongoing support.
XP was Awful on release, but by SP2 was really solid. Vista was Awful on release but by EOl, was really solid. Same will now be true of Win10, and will be true of Windows 11 when Windows 12 comes out.
Linux Distros try their best to follow the model,but the analogy is probably more applicable to DE than OS.
Adurbe,
I agree with the point you are making about starting out on shaky / buggy ground and then kinks getting ironed out over time. By the time windows 7 was released most of the drama of vista’s incompatible drivers was mostly done. Vista users were guinea pigs so that windows 7 could go smoother.
This is a normal cycle for windows releases. As long as microsoft’s investments in windows actually align with user interests, we expect things to get better. However there’s another aspect we need to make explicit: antifeatures These are not implemented for users, but to advance advertising, data collection, and control over users.
The main concern on my mind is not windows bugs…it’s the antifeatures. When we talk about windows 11 or 12 improving over time, I am less confident about this. I hesitate to look at past windows cycles as a model for future windows trends because antifeatures are different. These are intentional and for it’s part microsoft wants them to become permanent. Like increasingly putting the pressure to login via a microsoft cloud account.
@Adurbe
I know you might find this hard to believe, but in the health sector I still come across air gapped diagnostic systems running XP SP3. Pretty much everything in them is repairable, the hardest thing to find now or configure are replacements for failed RTCs and even that is rarely an issue because everything runs off UPS..
Sure, nothing new. I guess that Win 9x are still around too. Just those machines are (I hope! :D) disconnected from Internet.
I wish they’d blink again and extend Windows 10 support as well….
It’s a real relief that Microsoft has decided to extend Office 365 support on Windows 10 until 2028. With Windows 10 users still making up the majority, this is a reasonable move and shows that Microsoft is listening, albeit a little late! https://thatsnot-myneighbor.io/