Microsoft reminded customers earlier this week that support for Office 2013 will end next April. It advised them to upgrade to a newer version to reduce their exposure to security risks.
"After five years of general support and five years of extended support, Office 2013 will reach the end of its extended support on 11 April 2023. Under the fixed lifecycle policy, security updates for Office 2013 will no longer be available after that date," Microsoft told customers.
"Once Office 2013 reaches the end of its support period, Microsoft will not provide new security updates. Continued use of Office 2013 after April 2023 may increase an organization's exposure to security risks or affect its ability to meet compliance obligations."
After the end of support, Microsoft will stop providing services to Office 2013 licensees, including technical support, bug fixes and security patches for new issues.
In addition, Office 2013 customers can use the Microsoft 365-can lead to performance or reliability problems.
The old Office users have basically two options.
- Or they can subscribe to Office 365, which offers, among other things, constantly updated programmes, but has a monthly fee.
- Or they buy the long-subsidised Office LTSC 2021-edition.
Another alternative is to switch to an open source Office alternative, such as LibreOffice, or to a free web-based version of Microsoft Office. These cover almost all the features of Microsoft Office.
