As we get close to the end of another year, there are a number of Microsoft products that will be reaching the end of their support in 2023. After these dates they will no longer benefit from Microsoft’s technical support of any issue, software updates or from security updates or fixes. This means that continuing to use them after these dates could increase the risks of viruses and malware and will mean that compatibility with other software or services may be affected or removed.

The following are the major products reaching their end of support in 2023:

10th January 2023: Microsoft Windows 8.1
11th April 2023: Microsoft Office 2013 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2013.
10th October 2023: Microsoft Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2 and Microsoft Office 2019 for MAC.

Others reaching their end of support in 2023 are listed here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/end-of-support/end-of-support-2023

During 2012, Microsoft SQL Server 2012 reached end of support https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/end-of-support/end-of-support-2022

Microsoft 365 Compatibility

Versions of Microsoft Office supported for connecting to Microsoft 365 services are now: Microsoft 365 Apps (you can see supported versions here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/officeupdates/update-history-microsoft365-apps-by-date#supported-versions), Office LTSC 2021, Office 2019, Office 2016. Users with Office 2013 which isn’t now supported may find they need fixes to retain access to Microsoft 365 during the discontinue of Basic Authentication, but like Office 2010 they may find they can’t connect to Microsoft 365 at all, so need to consider upgrading.

Cyber Protection

Don’t forget that it remains vital that you take steps to protect your business from cyber attacks: https://www.magicitservices.co.uk/take-steps-today-to-protect-your-business-from-cyber-attacks/

You may have seen the news about the recent Rackspace ransomware infection which caused a major outage to their hosted email service and loss of data for many customers. That’s why we have a range of services to prevent or mitigate such attacks which integrate into our Microsoft 365 offerings. It is also why we don’t offer or recommend Microsoft 365 services that are provided by hosting companies such as Ionos or GoDaddy which can effectively lock customers in to a restricted service.