Clubic' s usual, albeit rather bleak, panorama of Microsoft's end-of-life applications.
Despite the strong shift towards artificial intelligence, Microsoft remains a "classic" software giant. To maintain its leading position, the Redmond-based group, not far from Seattle, regularly monitors its most popular products. However, this follow-up is not eternal and, as is the case every year, a clean-up is in order. As we approach the end of 2025, the most important "sweep" will most certainly be on the operating systems front, with the end of Windows 10 support in particular. Announced several years ago and confirmed a few months ago, this end of support will take place on October 14, even if the American firm has provided for an extension - subject to conditions - for the more "nostalgic".
Alongside this major change - Windows 10 is unquestionably a behemoth - Microsoft is preparing the "closure" of other benchmarks, this time in office automation. Two of the most recent versions of the Office suite will no longer be updated. We're talking here about Office 2016 and Office 2019, whose most famous modules - Access, Excel, PowerPoint and Word - will no longer benefit from any evolution. A way, of course, to push ever more users to employ the American firm's subscription-based office suite, Microsoft 365.
The end of Microsoft's Windows 10 support will push even more users towards Windows 11 © Microsoft
Less well known to the general public, other applications will experience or have already experienced a similar fate. This is the case, for example, with certain products in the Dynamics range (C5, CRM, NAV and SL 2015), whose services were interrupted at the very start of the year, on January 14 to be exact. Similarly, Exchange Server 2016 and 2019, versions of Skype for Business (Server and Client) and Visual Studio 2015 will no longer be supported by Microsoft, which has also indicated that system administrators will also have to take care: Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2 will no longer benefit from any support as of September 30.
Of course, it's always a shame to be forced to upgrade your software simply to keep up with Microsoft's developments. But we can console ourselves with the fact that Microsoft is not a charity, and that if free software is more to your taste, there are plenty of other software solutions, from LibreOffice to the many variations of Linux.
