Time is up for Office 2013 – What’s happening & why is it not working?
Microsoft Office 2013 – What’s happening & why is it not working?
Microsoft Office 2013 is nearing the end of its extended support on 11th April 2023 and they are advising clients to switch to a newer version to reduce their exposure to security risks.
Once the end of support is reached, Microsoft will stop providing several services to Office 2013 license owners, including technical support, bug fixes, and security patches for new issues.
Also, connecting Office 2013 clients to Microsoft 365 mail will lead to performance or reliability issues because Office 2013 is no longer a supported client and hasn’t been since October 2020.
During the last few weeks, we have had to update many clients to enable modern authentication where we can as Office 2013 loses its ability to connect to Microsoft 365 where email is hosted. This explains why some employees having been working quite merrily and others haven’t been able to.
Office 2016 users have no issues as modern authentication is already enabled: however, support ends 14th October 2025 for these licensed users.
So what options are available?
Upgrade options are either to subscribe to Microsoft 365 versions which incorporate Office, like Standard or E3 which are business class and allow users to install full versions of Office apps on multiple devices.
OR
Clients an opt to purchase a full license of Office 2021 which is sold as a one-time purchase via a license key and can only be installed on one computer per license. Microsoft generally support their products for approximately 10ys from launch, so in theory purchasing the product this way should last until September 2031. However currently Microsoft have stated that support will cease 13th October 2026 and their stance is there will be no extended support period for this product.
The main difference between these two Office versions is that Microsoft 365 Apps is updated regularly with new features while Office 2021 has the same features it came with on its launch date, in September 2021.
The drive by Microsoft to subscribe to their software continues.
