top of page
Writer's pictureKarl Donaubauer

Microsoft's Lifecycle Policy for Office/Access

Updated: Oct 2


On April 11, 2023, the support for Office 2013 and thus Access 2013 has expired. This means that Microsoft will no longer provide technical support for this version, will no longer send bug and security fixes, and that this version will gradually disappear from the online documentation at Microsoft.


The end of support means that many organizations and companies will or even have to replace it with something newer. In the case of Office 2013, this should have already happened for the most part, because the end of the 10-year support period was known.


That being said, Office 2013 continues to work, of course. (1) Access 2013, however, was never very popular (that's what our conference statistics always said), because there were almost no new features in this version, but many deprecations.


Office 2013 fell under Microsoft's Fixed Lifecycle Policy with 5 years Mainstream + 5 years Extended Support. Office 2016 and 2019 are the last Office versions under this policy, 2019 already with a reduced support period of 5+2. Here are the dates:

Product

Start

Mainstream End

Extended End

Sep 22, 2015

Oct 13, 2020

Oct 14, 2025

Sep 24, 2018

Oct 10, 2023

Oct 14, 2025

Office 2021, 2024 and Office/Microsoft 365 fall under the current Modern Lifecycle Policy:

Product

Start

Retirement

Oct 5, 2021

Oct 13, 2026

Oct 1, 2024

Oct 9, 2029

Sep 22, 2015

In Support

So, all 365 apps like Access 365 no longer have an end date for support. Instead according to the Lifecycle FAQ:


Products and services governed by the Modern Lifecycle Policy are supported as long as customers stay current as per the servicing and licensing requirements published for the product or service and have the rights to use the product or service. Microsoft will provide a minimum of 12 months' prior notification before ending support for products governed by the Modern Lifecycle Policy without providing a successor product or service, excluding free products, services or preview releases.

2 more Microsoft links:


1) Personal side note: I still use Access 2010, a stable version outside of support ;-) , as the main tool for development, because it allows me to serve customers with all frequently used versions (2010-365). Only for customers who use features that are not backward compatible, like one who uses Modern Charts in Access 365, I use this version for development.

1,583 views3 comments

Recent Posts

See All

3 Comments


George Hepworth
George Hepworth
Apr 20, 2023

Just a comment on Modern Charts. Although they can't be displayed in A2010, the presence of a modern chart in a report does not disable the report itself, nor to the extent I've been able to verify, cause any errors. In other words, users would just see a blank space where the chart would be. You can put a label there alerting users to the fact that there is a modern chart which would be visible in a later version which supports them. In other words, Access 2010 is pretty rock-solid even if it doesn't support new features.

Like
Colin Riddington
Colin Riddington
Apr 22, 2023
Replying to

Until recently, I also did all my development work in A2010 due to its stability and list of features. Although I do now develop in A365, I keep A2010 available on a dual install for use when converting to ACCDE.

A365 does have some cool features including the new linked table manager and improvements to the query designer. However, modern charts aren't a feature that I ever found useful. I can fully understand why so many developers are happy to continue using old versions even though they no longer receive security updates.

Like
bottom of page