Life Cycle by Product Category

Changes to Microsoft’s support life cycle over the years have resulted in a complex matrix of product life cycles.

Although Microsoft made significant modifications to the support timetable in June 2004, the type of support available for a given product and the number of years in which support is available depend on the product classification. In addition, the company has made exceptions for several legacy products that remain in wide use. This chart shows the duration of assisted support (available for free or for an additional fee, depending on how old the product is) and life-cycle phases that apply to various product categories. The table is divided into two sections: a section covering current products, to which the June 2004 rules generally apply, and a section covering legacy products that are still in use, but that had already left Mainstream support by June 2004.

Current business and developer products do not have Custom support, because none are more than 10 years old, and that level of support is currently required only for legacy products that had a shorter assisted-support life cycle to begin with. However, if Microsoft perceives sufficient customer demand, it might eventually offer Custom support for some current products.