Office 365 ProPlus, Office 365 Business which is included in business plans such as M365 Business and Office 365 Business Premium, and desktop versions of Project and Visio, which was initially compatible with Windows 7 will have to be migrated to Windows 10 to get feature updates.
Using Office 365 ProPlus or above-mentioned products on older, unsupported operating systems may cause performance and reliability issues over time. Therefore, if your organization is using Office 365 on devices running Windows 7, we strongly recommend your organization move those devices to Windows 10.
However, the security updates for all the products running on Windows 7 will continue for the next 3 years i.e. till 2023. These security updates can be availed only with Extended Security Updates (ESU).
Also, there won’t be any feature updates for Office 365 ProPlus running on Windows 7. However, after making transition from Windows 7 to Windows 10 you will receive all the cumulative feature updates that you may have missed.
What about other versions of Office on Windows 7?
Non-subscription versions of Office, such as Office Professional Plus 2016 or Office Standard 2013, will continue to be supported.
Even if your version of Office is still supported, Windows 7 will no longer receive security updates after January 2020, unless you have ESU, leaving it vulnerable to security threats.
What should I do to prepare for this change?
We recommend you migrate to Windows 10 or a supported operating system before the end of support date on January 14, 2020, in order to continue receiving new feature updates to Office 365 plans.
More information about how to get security updates for Office 365 ProPlus on devices running Windows 7 after support for Windows 7 ends will be out by January.
Note: This information also applies to Office 365 Business which is included in business plans such as M365 Business and Office 365 Business Premium, and to desktop versions of Project and Visio.
