Office 365 and Client Software Support

Some PCs accessing Office 365 will need upgrades in 2015 according to current support policy. Shown here are possible release and retirement roadmaps for two important pieces of client software for Office 365, the Office suite (which includes the Outlook e-mail client) and Internet Explorer (IE), and the implications for future support with Office 365.

Office 365 services will not actively block clients running unsupported client software, so the loss of product support is not serious in the short term. However, if a problem occurs, Microsoft support personnel might prescribe a client software upgrade as the only solution. Microsoft generally gives Office 365 customers 12 months’ notice before “disruptive changes,” which includes ending support for client software.

Microsoft only supports Office 365 services with Office desktop suite versions that are in the Mainstream support phase. Office 2010 leaves Mainstream support Oct. 13, 2015, so PCs running that version will require upgrades to Office 2013 or the next version (labeled Office 2015 here) by that date to retain support for Office 365. Microsoft also only supports the most recent service pack for an Office version, although it gives customers 12 months to deploy each service pack. The policy means that customers using Office 2013 with Office 365 will need to deploy Office 2013 SP1 by Apr. 14, 2015, to retain support.