In context: Microsoft will officially end support for Windows 10 on October 14, 2025, though enterprise organizations willing to pay the fare will be able to extend support for a few additional years. However, users running Office applications or the Microsoft 365 suite will also receive extended support, at no additional cost.
Earlier this year, Microsoft had clearly stated that Office apps running on Windows 10 would lose support alongside the operating system. Now, Redmond has partially revised its position and will provide several more years of official support for users running Office tools or the Microsoft 365 suite on Windows 10 machines.
According to the recently updated support article, Microsoft 365 apps will continue to receive security patches and bug fixes on Windows 10 until October 10, 2028. “If your organization is using Microsoft 365 Apps on devices running Windows 10, those devices should move to Windows 11,” Microsoft warns just in case.
The company had already confirmed plans to continue updating Windows Defender malware definitions “at least” until October 2028.
Meanwhile, support for the pay-once, subscription-free versions of the Office suite (Office 2021, Office 2024) follows a different fixed-lifecycle policy. This policy guarantees a minimum of five years of mainstream support, meaning Office 2021 and Office 2024 will continue to receive official updates on Windows 10 until October 2026 and October 2029, respectively.
A separate support page detailing Office compatibility with different Windows versions still lists October 2025 as the end-of-support date for the full productivity suite on Windows 10. However, the aforementioned fixed-lifecycle policy remains in effect.
So why did Microsoft decide to extend Office support on an operating system that’s nearing its end of life? There’s no official explanation yet, but we can speculate based on how the transition to Windows 11 is progressing.
In its Microsoft 365 support article, Microsoft explains that the new timeline is intended to keep customers secure while they transition to the newer OS. Die-hard Windows 10 users will still be able to purchase an Extended Security Updates (ESU) license after October 2025, while enterprise organizations can pay for continued support until October 10, 2028. Keeping Office apps updated while the ESU program is active will likely offer tangible benefits to Microsoft’s software business.
On the flip side, Microsoft’s apparent willingness to accommodate Windows 10 holdouts also serves its ongoing push to get users to adopt Windows 11.
Hundreds of millions of perfectly functioning PCs will be left behind soon, and Microsoft would very much like force users to purchase a brand-new system. The company is also exploiting a few dirty tricks with its diverse software portfolio, like slowing down OneNote on Windows 10 to encourage people to finally enjoy their new Windows 11 environment.
