In an article released by the company, Microsoft will be ending support for and retiring a wide range of their products and older versions of their operating system in 2023.
While you will still be able to use your Microsoft products, if only for a limited time, the lack of support will mean that the software will no longer be updated and you will not be able to get help from Microsoft should your software begin to give you problems. The products being ended will also no longer receive security updates, leaving the software vulnerable to interference.
While this sounds quite alarming and you might be panicking upon reading this, don’t worry. This happens quite a lot more often than you could imagine and generally the products (those with support ending, not those being retired) continue to work without issues for years. The real problem comes in when a major product, like an entire operating system, ceases to be supported. In these cases, it is generally better to update the product with the latest version in order to avoid experiencing issues that could affect your work.
To check the full list of products being retired or having their support ended this year, check out this notice from Microsoft. The list is quite extensive and it is definitely going to affect numerous users, including companies, as old versions of Office favourites such as Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint and Word, are among the products reaching End of Support.
What should you do to prepare?
The good news about Microsoft ending its support for products or completely discontinuing them is that they give the user a fair amount of warning.
This means that you will have time to prepare for the coming change, without having to deal with downtime or having to scramble around trying to replace or update the software in a hurry. If you have an IT team or if you outsource to an IT company, they will be able to handle the transition for you and keep your software updated to the latest version.
Although Microsoft is ending support or retiring a product such as Word or Excel, there is normally the option of updating the product to the new version, but when it comes to the operating system, things can get a bit more technical and unplanned.
This year, support for Windows 8 is going to be stopped while support for Windows 7 has already come to an end. Windows users are being advised to make the leap to Windows 11 if they are still using an older version of the operating system to avoid problems. Ideally, you should make the move before Microsoft forces you to update your system as these sorts of updates can happen unexpectedly and the last thing you want to do is be in a hurry one morning and find that Windows is running a massive, time consuming update.
As Microsoft says, change might be scary, but the latest versions of the Microsoft Products promise to life a whole lot easier for the user.
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At 24/7 IT Services we provide Managed IT Support and IT Consultancy Services for a range of companies, and with the company changes with the Microsoft Products, we can help you avoid the frustration of dealing with outdated software. Contact us today for more information.
