News

Aging Windows, SharePoint and Dynamics Products Get 6-Month Extension

• By Kurt Mackie
• April 15, 2020

In response to the "current public health situation," Microsoft is extending the life of many of its key products that were originally slated to reach their support deadlines this year.

Version 1809 of Windows 10 and Windows Server, System Center Configuration Manager version 1810 and SharePoint Server 2010 (among others) have had their end-of-life dates postponed by as much as six months, Microsoft announced this week. Support deadlines that were due in May now fall toward year's end, for example.

Here are the new end-of-support dates for affected Microsoft products and services:

Microsoft's announcement on extending the Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement legacy Web client by two months also noted that Microsoft will be "simplifying the ability for Dynamics 365 Finance, Supply Chain Management, and Commerce customers to pause updates for an extended period." This nuance on pausing updates supposedly is explained in this document. However, the document just states that subscribers can pause for "up to three consecutive updates," without further elaboration.

Microsoft also announced earlier this month that it was delaying ending support for the older Transport Layer Security protocols versions 1.0 and 1.1, pushing it out until the second half of 2020. The switch will have an affect on Microsoft's browsers and Office 365 products.

Office 2010 Support Still Ends in October
Also on Tuesday, Microsoft issued a reminder that Office 2010 for Windows and Office 2016 for Mac both will reach their end-of-support date on Oct. 13, 2020. They aren't getting extensions.

These Office users face an additional problem, namely that Microsoft plans to end the connections of those products with various Office 365 services on that same Oct. 13, 2020 date. Users should shift to newer productivity-suite products, Microsoft advised.

Here's how it was expressed in Microsoft's announcement:

Also, as previously announced, after October 13, 2020, customers will need to have Office 365 ProPlus,[1] Office 2019 or Office 2016 to connect to Office 365 services. Microsoft will not take any active measures to block legacy versions of the Office client from connecting to Office 365 services, but these older clients may encounter performance and/or reliability issues over time. For related Office client support timelines, see the Office support dates matrix.

Microsoft is planning to rename Office 365 ProPlus as "Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise" on April 21. This nuance, along with other Office 365 name changes, were announced last month.

When Microsoft products reach their end-of-support dates (known as the end of "extended support"), they continue to function, but Microsoft stops issuing free patches. Security updates stop arriving, which could pose problems for organizations.