14 DAY TRIAL // This month’s Patch Tuesday cycle included the last updates for the Office 2007 productivity suite, with Microsoft retiring this version and officially ending extended support.
In other words, no new updates would be released for Office 2007, and customers are recommended to update as soon as possible to a newer version of the productivity suite or to Office 365. If the subscription service isn’t your cup of tea, switching to Office 2016 is certainly the best idea, as it’s the newest version that will continue to get updates until 2025.
The end of Office 2007 support causes the death of several other products, including all the built-in apps and tools, like the 2007 edition of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Visio.
“Office 2007 reaches the end of its support lifecycle this year, meaning there will be no new security updates, non-security updates, free or paid assisted support options, or online technical content updates. Customers who are using Office 2007 products and services should start planning to move to Office 365 or upgrade to supported versions of Office products and services, such as Office 2016,” Microsoft says.
Outlook 2007 end of life
In the case of Outlook 2007, Microsoft reminds that switching to Office 365 brings a major change in the support client connectivity protocols, as Outlook Anywhere is being replaced by MAPI/HTTP, so the unsupported client will no longer be able to connect.
Upgrading to supported Office versions is critical for heavy users, especially because the productivity suite has been the target of several major vulnerabilities lately, many of which could be exploited with just a crafted document.
The most recent example comes from this month’s Patch Tuesday rollout when Microsoft confirmed a security vulnerability in Office that would allow an attacker to even take control of an unpatched system, all with a malicious document. What’s worse is that the flaw was already being exploited in the wild, which emphasizes just how important it is for everyone to run the latest patches all the time.