- May 19, 2011
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Historically, Microsoft products received security updates for 10 years after their release, e.g. Office 2013 went from 2013 to 2023, Windows 10 from 2015 through to October 2025. Lots more examples can be provided of the ten-year-support-lifespan.
However, possibly since the initial release of Office 365, stand-alone versions of Office have had their supported lifespans steadily wound down, e.g. Office 2016 -> 2025, Office 2019 -> 2025, Office 2021 -> 2026.
The reason why I think this might happen to Windows as well is because back when Windows 10 was to be the last version of Windows supported forever, its support lifespan page still said October 2025 right from the start. At the time I thought this was odd but I figured that maybe an autofilled formula had been used, maybe the db in which the information is stored in required a value so it was as good a value as any, etc. However, Windows 11's official supported lifespan still has not been released, and I wonder if that information will only be released when Win12's release is being planned. Whether Win11 will get 5 years or maybe Windows will have its supported lifespan wound down like stand-alone Office has - probably more likely at this point given that 2026 is not far off at all, though Win11 went from non-existence / 10X to 11 pretty quickly, though I suspect that was due to Microsoft abruptly deciding to do a 180.
I wonder whether this is all part of Microsoft trying to reduce the amount of products they have to provide support for, but I can't think of a coherent set of logic to guess their strategy by because IMO they're trying to imitate MacOS on so many fronts yet a new Windows release stimulates hardware sales which pleases their partners, there's WaaS to consider too...
However, possibly since the initial release of Office 365, stand-alone versions of Office have had their supported lifespans steadily wound down, e.g. Office 2016 -> 2025, Office 2019 -> 2025, Office 2021 -> 2026.
The reason why I think this might happen to Windows as well is because back when Windows 10 was to be the last version of Windows supported forever, its support lifespan page still said October 2025 right from the start. At the time I thought this was odd but I figured that maybe an autofilled formula had been used, maybe the db in which the information is stored in required a value so it was as good a value as any, etc. However, Windows 11's official supported lifespan still has not been released, and I wonder if that information will only be released when Win12's release is being planned. Whether Win11 will get 5 years or maybe Windows will have its supported lifespan wound down like stand-alone Office has - probably more likely at this point given that 2026 is not far off at all, though Win11 went from non-existence / 10X to 11 pretty quickly, though I suspect that was due to Microsoft abruptly deciding to do a 180.
I wonder whether this is all part of Microsoft trying to reduce the amount of products they have to provide support for, but I can't think of a coherent set of logic to guess their strategy by because IMO they're trying to imitate MacOS on so many fronts yet a new Windows release stimulates hardware sales which pleases their partners, there's WaaS to consider too...
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