As of 13 October, Microsoft will stop supporting older versions of Office applications connected to Office 365 and Microsoft 365 services.
In a support document dated 20 July, Microsoft listed the applications that will be supported for connecting to Office 365 and Microsoft 365 services like Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business.
The Office editions left are those provided with perpetual licenses – ones customers paid once, not again & again as for Office or MS 365 subscriptions – including Office 2013 on Windows, that is to receive support until 11 April 2023, Office 2010 for Windows and Office 2016 for Mac.
The last two general support on Oct 13 (Mac versions of Office are supported only for 5 years, rather than decade Windows’ editions receive).
Although excluding some Office applications from Office 365 service may harsh especially when these are owned by years – Microsoft has taken this blow considerably.
The Redmond, Wash, developer stated in a document, “We won’t take any active measures to block other versions of Office client, like Office 2013, from connecting to Office 365 services, but these older clients may face performance or other issues over time.”
With support lost more from omission that commission, Microsoft argued that customers have to face an increased security risk and find them out of compliance, rather than be suddenly suspended from accessing, say, OneDrive.
Microsoft provided long support for Office applications connecting to Office 365 services. Three years back, the company said that the perpetual license of versions of Office would be able to connect to Microsoft’s cloud-based services only during the first half of their 10-year support lifecycle. The new policy would take effect from Oct 13, 2020.