Rohan

With every latest update in a product or a new product, Microsoft ends the previous product. This year, it is the End of Life for Office 2007. It is nothing but Microsoft will end the support for Office 2007 on October 10, 2017. Hence, Microsoft advises all the current users of Office 2007 to upgrade Office 365 or ProPlus. Microsoft has published a complete guide on the roadmap of End of Life for Office 2007 and also how to upgrade it to Office 365 and Office 365 ProPlus.

End of Life for Office 2007

End of Life for Office 2007 is nothing but the end of support for this product by Microsoft. Hence, users will not receive any patches or updates for Office 2007 after October 10, 2017. As a result, using Office 2007 may leave users’ computers vulnerable to errors as well as security threats.

Most of the Microsoft products have a support lifecycle of 10 years. Thus, Office 2007 too received new features, bug fixes, security fixes and various other updates during these 10 years. The end of this lifecycle is typically known as End of Life. The End of Life for Office 2007 will be October 10, 2017.

After the End of Life for Office 2007, Microsoft will not provide:

  • Technical support for issues
  • Bug fixes for issues that are discovered
  • Security fixes for vulnerabilities that are discovered

Besides this, currently, there are several Outlook 2007 clients that are using Office 365. From October 31, 2017; these clients too won’t be able to connect to Office 365 mailboxes. Hence, Outlook 2007 clients using Office 365 will not be able to receive and send mail.

So what should you do?

Before the End of Life for Office 2007, users are recommended to follow one of these steps:

  • Upgrade to Office 365 ProPlus, the subscription version of Office that comes with many Office 365 plans.
  • Upgrade to Office 2016, which is sold as a one-time purchase and available for one computer per license.
  • Upgrade to an earlier version of Office, such as Office 2013.

As Microsoft mentions, Office 365 is the subscription plan that includes access to Office applications and other cloud services, including Skype for Business, Exchange Online, and OneDrive for Business. On the other hand, Office 365 ProPlus is the version of Office that comes with many Office 365 plans. It includes the full versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, OneNote, Publisher, Access, and Skype for Business installed on your client computers. As the End of Life for Office 2007 is nearing and only a couple of months are left, users are advised to upgrade as soon as possible.