Microsoft

Microsoft announce changes to Windows 10, Office 365 and Office 2019

Microsoft published a new blog post on February 1, 2018 and it is packed full on information relevant to the world of ITAM.

Up to now, each release of Windows 10 has come with an 18-month support schedule. Now, in response to requests from large corporate customers, Microsoft have announced an additional 6 months of “servicing” for certain Windows 10 Enterprise and Education releases.

The included versions, and the new support end dates are:

 

Release	Release date	End of Support	End of additional servicing
Windows 10, 1607	August 2, 2016	April 10, 2018	October 9, 2018
Windows 10, 1703	April 5, 2017	October 9, 2018	April 9, 2019
Windows 10, 1709	October 17, 2017	April 9, 2019	October 8, 2019

 

Pay more, get more

It was also announced that “additional paid servicing options” will be available for Windows 10 Enterprise and Education, from version 1607 onwards.

For more details, Microsoft say to “contact your account team” – if you do, please be sure to let me know what you find out!

Office 365 Pro Plus – what is supported

Microsoft have clarified that Office 365 Pro Plus is not supported on versions of Windows 10 that are no longer being serviced.

For organisations running both Windows 10 and Office 365 Pro Plus, this means processes must be in place to ensure your ability to keep up with Microsoft’s release pace for the OS. Now that the support period has been extended from 18 to 24 months, this should be easier than before – but is keeping pace with new Windows 10 releases still a potential issue within your organisation?

The year 2020

January 4, 2020 will see several changes occur for Office 365 Pro Plus. From that date, it will no longer be supported on:

• Windows 10 LTSC* releases
• Windows Server 2016 and older
• Windows 8.1 and older

*Long Term Servicing Channel – the new name for LTSB, Long Term Servicing Branch

This means from January 4, 2020 – Office 365 Pro Plus will only run on supported versions of the Windows 10 Operating System.

For those of you who deliver Office via Remote Desktop Services (RDS) and/or Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) – Microsoft will be delivering new capabilities for these within Windows 10 Enterprise and Windows Server via the Semi-Annual Channel release schedule.

Office 2019

Office 2019, the next perpetual, on-premises release of Microsoft Office will ship in H2 (July – December) of 2018, with previews of apps being available from Q2 (April – June) 2018.

Office 2019 will be supported on:

• Any supported Windows 10 Semi-Annual Channel release
• Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2018
• The next LTSC release of Windows Server

Deployment methods

Office 2019 will only be available as a Click-to-Run (C2R) install. The traditional MSI package will no longer be offered for Office 2019 apps – although it will still be used for Office Server products.

Are there reasons that the Click-to-Run deployment method can’t be used within your organisation?

Changes to Office 2019 support lifecycle

Previous releases of Office have been under the Microsoft Fixed Lifecycle Policy – 5 years of mainstream support + 5 years of extended support. This won’t be the case with Office 2019 which will instead have 5 years of mainstream support + “approximately” 2 years of extended support which Microsoft say will end on October 14, 2025.

Do you currently take advantage of the full 10-year support lifecycle for Microsoft Office? Will Office 2019 having just 7 years in total mean a change within your organisation?

Further Reading

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/windowsitpro/2018/02/01/changes-to-office-and-windows-servicing-and-support/

Windows 10 Servicing FAQ – https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4035050

 

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