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Topic: Microsoft

Office 2007 gets a six-month support extension from Microsoft

Summary: Office 2007 users: You now have a few more months before Microsoft ends your free support period.

Mary Jo Foley

By for All About Microsoft |

You may have seen a few headlines this week noting that Office 2007 was exiting the free support phase this week, and moving into the "Extended" (paid) support period.

Actually -- as I discovered via a tweet from Directions on Microsoft's Rob Helm -- Microsoft quietly gave Office 2007 (with Service Pack 3) an extension. Instead of moving into the Extended Support phase on April 9, as was the original plan, Office 2007 now moves to Extended on October 9, 2012. Extended support for the product ends on October 10, 2017.

Mainstream support is the period during which Microsoft provides free and regular updates including both security fixes and other patches for a product. Once a product exits the mainstream support phase, it enters Extended Support. During this period, security updates for a product remain free, but most other updates are only supplied on a paid basis, and require a separate Hotfix Agreement.

I just confirmed this with Microsoft. “Based on our support policies, we moved the EOL (end of life) support dates for the Microsoft Office Division 2007 editions forward to October to give 2 full years of mainstream support after the launch of the 2010 products.”

Here's the Microsoft Life Cycle page for Office 2010 with the updated dates:

(click on the chart to enlarge)

Microsoft is encouraging those still using Office 2007 to move to Office 2010 as soon as possible. Meanwhile, Office 15, which is likely to be called Office 2013, from what I've heard, is expected to hit public beta this summer and possibly be released to manufacturing late this year (November, according to the source grapevine).

As my ZDNet colleague Ed Bott noted earlier this year, Microsoft quietly updated its Product Lifecycle rules to extend support for the Consumer versions of Vista and Windows 7 to 10 years (five mainstream, five extended), the same amount of time that Business versions of Windows are supported.

Windows Vista moved from Mainstream to Extended support earlier this week.

Topics: Microsoft, Collaboration, Software

About

Mary Jo has covered the tech industry for more than 25 years for a variety of publications and Web sites, and is a frequent guest on radio, TV and podcasts, speaking about all things Microsoft-related. She is the author of Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft plans to stay relevant in the post-Gates era (John Wiley & Sons, 2008).

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39 comments
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  • Still on XP and Office 07

    Would love to make the upgrade to Windows 7 and Office 2010, but my hands are tied since these are Government machines and all I am allowed to do is manage and maintain them, anything else is beyond me.
    adacosta38
    Reply Vote

    • XP & Office 07

      I did transition to Windows 7 & Office 2010, as needed for an online college course.
      For any other need I would have stayed with XPsp3 & Office 97.
      If we had to replace our Vehicles Like M/S wants us to upgrade & update our software, the Automakers would never have needed Government Help.
      inkwell
      Reply Vote

      • Like our vehicles

        It was the "American" car companies that needed gov'm'nt help. Thus, we did have to replace/update the vehicles as often as MS products. e.g., 2 new transmissions in my Caravan before 125k miles.
        kessj21
        Reply Vote

      • Your 2007 automobile has a support service?

        Funny story: most cars have a < 3 year warranty on them. Great comparison.

        Try going to a Ford dealer and asking about compatability / security updates on your 5+ year old car.
        mrefuman
        Reply Vote

      • XP & Office 07...

        agree completely!
        OffMgr60
        Reply Vote

  • A transition to extended support on a Monday??

    Lifecycle transitions always take place on the first patch Tuesday of a quarter (i.e. the patch Tuesdays in January, April, July and October); never on a Monday. If you found something saying "April 9th", it was probably a typo (yesterday (the 10th) was patch Tuesday).

    The "don't worry, you have 2 years after version N+1" policy is also standard, but it requires a Masters degree in MSFT Lifecycle Studies to figure that out. It tends to be known as the "Vista Rule" (it's the reason XP's support is lasting so long). However, the delays in releasing SQL 2005 were the reason that policy was adopted.
    Flydog57
    Reply Vote

  • Office 2007 ????

    Darn - I guess that means my Office 97 is getting a little shaky.......................
    But - it only cost me $2.00 at the Salvation Army Thrift Store.
    inkwell
    Reply Vote

    • office 2007

      That is an excellent price and the best price to pay for any MS product. I only "upgraded" to Office 2007 from Office 97 because I had a friend who worked at MS and could get me the last version of XP and Office 2007 for staff price or else I would never have bought it. My laptop came "free: with Windows 7 basic and loaded with Office 2010 which could not be used as I would have had to buy a licence. I deleted the whole of the Office suite and loaded Open Office. It works as well if not better than MS Office and doesn't given any glitches. Why would I want support on a package I have never used support on? MS is a huge rip off for consumers.
      gwyn909
      Reply Vote

  • Well...

    I have never needed any support from Microsoft. Neither for MS-DOS 4 etc Neither for Windows 3.1, 95, 98, XP, Vista, 7. Neither for Office... So what?
    bmaresc
    Reply Vote

    • I Hope You're Exaggerating

      ... because I've certainly needed the support MS provides -- not usually of the "I can't get it to do X" type, but instead the "dear gods, have they finally patched that security hole" type.
      mdwalls
      Reply Vote

    • Derp

      SO you don't run any microsoft products?
      mrefuman
      Reply Vote

    • support

      I agree. I use Open Office and also don't need support from MS. When I first started using word processors and spreadsheets before Windows I learnt by trying out different things, then standing in bookshops studying the "help" manuals.
      gwyn909
      Reply Vote

      • Dumpster Diving

        Instead of bookstore aisle clogging.
        PMC-CON
        Reply Vote

  • Office 2007 gets a six-month support extension from Microsoft

    Just a note of heads up, the March Office updates killed Word in Office 97 -only Word - on three of my Win7 64 bit computer computers. I uninstalled all updates but the new update SP3, and Word lived again, but totally unsecure. So I did the right thing, I purchased Office 2010, two licenses. The third machine I use only for crunching work units for BOINC projects and WCG, so Word is not important there.
    richardmitnick
    Reply Vote

    • The right thing?

      Not so sure about that.....the right thing would have been to install Libre Office (the new Open Office) and abandoned Microsoft's forced obsolescence altogether.
      intotheapex@...
      Reply Vote

      • Yup, the right thing.

        Yup, the right thing.

        Office 97 apparently worked for 10+ years. And if he had the money to get 2010, then what's the problem?

        I don't think there's any moral "wrong" with what he did. It's an office suite, not a religion.
        CobraA1
        Reply Vote

  • No need to stay with MS Office

    I moved my business over to LibreOffice with no difficulty at all. Does everything I needed MS Office for, and just as well. If you have control over what runs on your machines, look into it.
    Steerpike7
    Reply Vote

    • What a joke !!!

      LibreOffice is barely good enough for college students, and is probably one of the most slow, cumbersome and resource hog software I ever installed on my computer.

      When you means your business you probably mean only you.
      SylvainT
      Reply Vote

      • The sort of thing an MS Shill would say!

        Sheesh; tedious.
        rahbm
        Reply Vote

    • LibreOffice has no Outlook or Exchange client

      LibreOffice has no Outlook or Exchange client though?

      I've yet to use a better PIM client than Outlook (Thunderbird? Please, there's much more to Outlook than just e-mail) and if you use Exchange, you have to use Outlook too.

      Personally I hate LibreOffice and OpenOffice. They remind me of Office 2003 and that's now 9 years old.
      bradavon
      Reply Vote
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