Microsoft will support Office on Windows 10 until 2028 -- but not the operating system

It has been difficult to escape the fact Microsoft is ending support for Windows 10 later this year -- on October 14 to be precise. The company has made much of issuing reminders about this date as well as endlessly pestering people to upgrade to Windows 11.

But it was not just Windows 10 that was to lose support in October. Microsoft had also said that Office (or Microsoft 365) on Windows 10 would not be supported from the same date. Now the company has had a change of heart, and will provide support for much longer than it previously announced.

See also:

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• Microsoft is giving Windows 11 users the option to install apps directly from the Start menu

And when we say “much longer”, this is not really an exaggeration. Microsoft has just announced that it is extending support for Office/Microsoft 365 on Windows 10 by a staggering three years. Oddly, although Microsoft says that the extension is being introduced to “help maintain security while you transition to Windows 11”, there are no plans to further extend support for Windows 10 itself.

Even more strangely, Microsoft is breaking its own policies with this change. The Windows 10/Microsoft 365 support documentation states:

Microsoft 365 is governed by the Modern Lifecycle Policy. This policy requires customers to stay current as per the servicing and system requirements for the product or service. These requirements include using Microsoft 365 Apps on a supported Windows operating system.

It goes on to say:

Although apps such as Word will continue to work after Windows 10 reaches end of support, using an unsupported operating system can cause performance and reliability issues when running Microsoft 365 Apps. If your organization is using Microsoft 365 Apps on devices running Windows 10, those devices should move to Windows 11.

Despite what the above says, Microsoft then continues to talk about the extension to Office support:

To help maintain security while you transition to Windows 11, Microsoft will continue providing security updates for Microsoft 365 Apps on Windows 10 for three years after Windows 10 reaches end of support. These updates will be delivered through the standard update channels, ending on October 10, 2028.

This is far from being the only recent example of Microsoft changing its mind about things, and this particular change is almost certainly one that came in response to user feedback. What is unlikely -- however much feedback the company gets -- is a further extension to the life of Windows 10.

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