In April 2024, Microsoft announced that it would end support for the Office 2016 and 2019 suites. This affects a whole list of products, including applications like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Publisher, along with servers like Exchange Server and Skype for Business Server.
Extended support for Office 2016 and Office 2019 ends
After October 14, 2025, there will be no more bug fixes, security updates, or technical support for any of the above. Of course, cybersecurity company 0patch said in August that it would offer ongoing security updates with the indemnity…
Now, Microsoft is warning users about the upcoming end of support and giving options for companies that need to abandon old platforms.
For Microsoft, of course, the solution is the cloud-powered Microsoft 365, the subscription-based replacement for Office that the company claims is “AI-ready” with 365 Copilot. This assistant is built into apps and lets you do interesting things. For example, in Word, you can ask it to summarize a twenty-page publication or write a marketing email.
The Redmond-based company promises that the cloud service offers automatic updates, ongoing support, better security, and more compared to on-premise versions of Office.
The company has been pushing the cloud a lot to its customers lately. For example, it recently started testing a feature that saves Word documents created on Windows to the cloud by default.
Microsoft claims this is done to prevent data loss and plans to implement the same default behavior in PowerPoint and Excel before the year is out.
For customers who don't want to go to the cloud, there is another option. This option is for devices that, for whatever reason, can't connect to the internet or receive regular feature updates. For these specific scenarios, Microsoft recommends moving to the newest perpetual license version, Office LTSC 2024.
But you won't find the LTSC versions on Microsoft's regular download page. You'll need to get an Enterprise license, and then you'll be able to log in to the Microsoft portal to download Office.
The easiest way is probably from the cheerfully named MASsgrave site. It has the LTSC ISO files for all regions and for the IoT versions, and you can check the MD5SUMs.
The page includes tools to activate the Enterprise edition on any hardware, but using these tools violates Microsoft's licensing terms and applicable laws.
iGuRu.gr does not recommend the use of the site
Although the press releases will range from very select to rare, I said I'd pass...because sometimes the editors hide.
