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Are your users still running Office 2013 ProPlus?

Microsoft

If your organization has deployed Office ProPlus from your Office 365 subscription, you may still have some users who are running Office 2013 ProPlus. Not only are these users missing out on the new capabilities in Office 365, like Groups and Skype for Business, but there is something more important for you to be aware of…the end of support for Office 2013 ProPlus.

 

As of February 28th, 2017, Office 2013 ProPlus will no longer be supported. Users running Office 2013 ProPlus will still receive critical security updates, but they will no longer receive product updates for new features that are added to the service. There is no automatic way to move from Office 2013 to Office 2016; however, Microsoft is here to help you transition to 2016 so you get access to mainstream support, as well as the latest features the service has to offer.

Here are the steps you should follow:

  1. Get familiar with the Office channel release model. Office 2016 is shipping in multiple channels. These different release channels allow you to control who in your organization gets the latest release, based on your needs.

    The First Release for Deferred Channel (FRDC) enables you to configure (per user) a group of early adopters. This group will get the latest and greatest features four months in advance of a Deferred Channel (DC) release. Premier Support escalates any cases related to the FRDC build directly to the Office engineering team, so that issues can be addressed prior to the DC release.

    The DC is made available only a few times a year (instead of every month) and is best for organizations that don't want to deploy the latest features of Office right away or that have a significant number of LOB applications, add-ins, or macros that need to be tested. This approach helps to avoid compatibility issues that can potentially stall deployments.

    Start testing FRDC now, if you plan to roll out the DC June release.

    Visit TechNet for more detailed information about channels and the client servicing model.

  2. Determine which of your users are still running Office 2013. Upgrading from Office 2013 to Office 2016 is not an automated process. If you are an Office 365 admin, you need to determine which of your users are still running Office 2013. Once you have identified these users, you will need to uninstall Office 2013 and reinstall Office 2016 for each of them.

  3. Start a group of users on the First Release builds. This group could include the IT team or early adopters, and gives them an opportunity to get comfortable with the new capabilities and test any LOB integrations that are critical to your business.

    If your users find any potential issues, they can open a CSS support incident. We actively monitor First Release tickets to more quickly escalate issues to the product engineering team.

  4. Contact the FastTrack Center to get assistance for your Office 365 ProPlus deployment. They will provide assistance to help you upgrade 2013 clients to 2016 and ensure you are on the latest service managed client. You can review the FastTrack Benefit Overview to learn more about how to work remotely with Microsoft specialists to get your Office 365 environment ready for use, as well as to plan rollout and usage within your organization.

    The FastTrack Center can provide you with assistance in testing, repackaging, and distributing Office 365 2016 ProPlus or help you to validate your deployment approach with a Microsoft engineer. To request assistance, go to the FastTrack site, select the Services tab, and submit the Request Office 2016 ProPlus Upgrade Assistance form.

    Additionally, you can contact your Microsoft sales representative or Technical Account Manager for assistance.
6 Replies

Hi Chris.  Is there another release of Office Pro Plus planned for that date? It was my understanding that Office 365 would support Office current version - 1, which would mean 2013 is still supported. 

Just wondering. Though I totally agree, customers and partners should get familiar with the different channels for updates and choose the release cycle appropriate to their organization, so they can keep up to date and take advantage of new features at a pace that suits them. 

Office 2016 ProPlus is the current version and supports the new client servicing model to ensure ProPlus is always up to date.

Hi Chris,
I don't mean to necro an old thread, but I had a question.
We had heard from our TAM and regional sales guy that Office 365 (15.*) is going 100% EOL in February 2017 including security patches. So, the communication was essentially "get off it now, or else."

Long story short, due to company deadlines and business processes, we need to get our enterprise on Office 365 (16.*) by the end of next month, which, in my opinion, is too short a timeline to allow for proper QA and pilot.

If what you're saying is true regarding the security patches continuing, I can push this deployment back until next April which will allow us the time we need to fully vet any potential issues in our environment. I've showed them this blog post, however they require something with a little more meat to convince them to the contrary of our TAM.

(For what it's worth, I was at Ignite last week and received the same answer you are stating here)

Can you provide any Microsoft resources I can leverage to accomplish this? I've checked the product lifecycle search and other resources, but can't seem to find an undeniable statement of support past Feb 2017.

Thanks in advance,
~M

Matt, I've had several customers told the same thing. It was originally September 2016 for end of updates, including security - then Feb 2017 for all updates included security. 

 

I suspect based on the above something has changed, but for obvious reasons it isn't widely publicised.

 

I would thing you need to push your Microsoft TAM and maybe TSP to follow this up internally and get you a definitative answer that you can rely on. You aren't alone as other organizations have dependancies like Exchange 2007 that they can't just "switch off".

best response confirmed by Chris Hopkins (Microsoft)
Solution

Today we published the KB article that details the end of support for the 2013 version of Office 365 ProPlus - https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3199744

 

calling out the specifics related to downloading, deploying and contacting Microsoft support.

Today we published the KB article that details the end of support for the 2013 version of Office 365 ProPlus - https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3199744

 

calling out the specifics related to downloading, deploying and contacting Microsoft support.

1 best response

Accepted Solutions
best response confirmed by Chris Hopkins (Microsoft)
Solution

Today we published the KB article that details the end of support for the 2013 version of Office 365 ProPlus - https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3199744

 

calling out the specifics related to downloading, deploying and contacting Microsoft support.

View solution in original post