Office 365 and Client Software Support

Some PCs accessing Office 365 services will need upgrades in 2015 according to current support policy. Shown here are likely support periods for Office 365 services with the Office suite (which includes the Outlook e-mail client), Internet Explorer (IE), and the Edge browser that will replace IE.

Microsoft generally gives Office 365 customers 12 months’ notice before “disruptive changes,” which includes ending support for client software. 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.

Office desktop suite versions are eligible for support with Office 365 services only while the suite version is in the Mainstream support phase. Office 2010 leaves Mainstream support Oct. 13, 2015, so PCs running that version will soon require upgrades to Office 2013 or the next version, Office 2016, to retain support for Office 365. The most recent service pack for an Office suite version is required for support, although customers have 12 months to deploy each service pack. The policy means that as of Apr. 14, 2015, PCs using Office 2013 require Office 2013 SP1 for support with Office 365.