Microsoft’s Thanksgiving 2025 Massacree

That’s Nice A Bunch Of Software You Got There … Shame If Something Happened To It

Microsoft is gifting us with an interesting October this year, with quite a few of their products hitting end of life.  As you should already be aware, on October 14, 2025 Windows 10 will stop receiving security updates; unless you fork over $61 per device for the first year.  That price will double every year after that, until Microsoft completely cuts it off.  Windows 10 is not the only product which will be going at that time.  If you use Office 2016 or Office 2019 you will stop getting updates on the same day.  The same is true for Skype for Business, though the personal version will continue it’s pathetic existence.

If you want to keep using Office products, it seems likely that Office Home & Student 2021 will be the very last standalone version.  Instead Adobe Microsoft would like to introduce you to their rental program.  Office 359 is a subscription service, generally known as an E3 license, and Microsoft would vastly prefer you move to that instead of being stubborn and wanting to pay a one time fee for your software.

To ensure no one is left out, October 14th also marks the end of Exchange Server 2016 and 2019.  This is absolutely hilarious as there is currently no newer version of Exchange Server, as Microsoft decided not to release Exchange Server 2022.  That decision came about due to Redmond finally accepting the fact that Exchange servers are a favourite target for attackers; state sponsored and lone wolves.  There will be an Exchange Server 2025 release, hopefully with enough lead time to allow at least a few minutes of testing before it has to go live.  Microsoft offers the same advice to users of on premise Exchange, to move to a Cloud subscription.

Adding insult to injury, the latest Windows 10 update release preview will gift you with a pop up if you use a local account.  It reads, in part, “New! This update starts the [roll out] of account-related notifications for Microsoft accounts in Settings > Home,”.  If you don’t choose follow their advice and do not associate your PC with a Microsoft account, it will continue to remind you of the supposed benefits of doing so.

At least it’s Friday today.