Updated: July 13, 2020 (May 24, 2004)

New Product Support Life-Cycle Phases

As managing vice president, Rob Helm covers Microsoft collaboration and content management. His 25-plus years of experience analyzing Microsoft’s technology... more

Business and development products will get full support for a longer period under product life-cycle changes that Microsoft announced in May 2004.

Microsoft divides a product’s life cycle into three phases: Mainstream (full support), Extended (limited support), and Online Self-Help (no support other than Web documentation). The chart below summarizes the three phases as they apply to business and development software under the most recent rules.

The rules now guarantee full support for a product version until two years after the successor version ships, ensuring that companies have at least two years to upgrade. In addition, the new rules guarantee Extended support for five years, versus two years previously. This implies full support for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 into 2008, with paid support and free security hotfixes into 2013.

Life-Cycle Phase	Normal Duration	Product Support Options	Software Updates
Mainstream	Five years from the date of general

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