Microsoft announce that Office 2016 will continue to be able to connect to Office 365 services through October 2023. The previous support policy mandated that after 13 October, 2020 customers would be required to have either Office 365 ProPlus or Office 2019 to connect to these services. Find the announcement towards the bottom of this page: http://bit.ly/2N3kqty.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Support for Office 365 ProPlus on Windows
Microsoft announce some extensions to the support for Office 365 ProPlus on various versions of Windows:
- Office 365 ProPlus will be supported on Windows 8.1 through January 2023, which is the end of support date for Windows 8.1
- Office 365 ProPlus will be supported on Windows 7 through January 2023 if the customer has purchased Windows 7 Enterprise Security Updates (see our blog post: http://bit.ly/2N1uwuM)
- Office 365 ProPlus will be supported on Windows Server 2016 until October 2025
Find the announcement towards the bottom of this page: http://bit.ly/2N3kqty.
Windows Server 2019 Essentials
Microsoft announce that there will be a Windows Server 2019 Essentials edition, released later this year along with the Standard and Datacenter editions of Windows Server 2019. There are no changes to the licensing (it’s a single Server licence that includes access for up to 25 users/50 devices) and it will be supported as a Long Term Servicing Channel release. In addition, Microsoft state the strong possibility that this could be the last version of Windows Server Essentials. Find the announcement here: http://bit.ly/2wWprZO.
Support for Windows 10 Semi-Annual Channel Releases
Microsoft announce a change from the maximum 18-months support for Windows 10 Semi-Annual Channel releases. The diagram below is taken from the announcement page (http://bit.ly/2N3kqty) and shows that there is no change to the support duration for Windows 10 Pro or Home, or indeed Office 365 ProPlus, but the September releases for Windows 10 Enterprise and Education will be supported for 30 months. In addition, all currently supported feature updates of Windows 10 Enterprise and Education editions (versions 1607, 1703, 1709, and 1803) will be supported for 30 months from their original release date.
Windows 7 Extended Security Updates
Microsoft announce that Extended Security Updates will be available for Windows 7, for which extended support ends on 14 January, 2020. The Windows 7 ESU will be sold on a per-device basis and will be available to customers who have purchased Windows 7 Professional/Enterprise through a Volume Licensing program. The price of the Windows 7 ESU will increase each year, but there will be discounts available for customers with active SA or Windows 10 Enterprise/Education subscriptions. Find the announcement towards the end of this page: http://bit.ly/2N3kqty.
Switching an Azure CSP Subscription to another Partner
If a customer has bought Azure services through a CSP partner then there’s an Azure Subscription set up and charging for the consumed services is done via the partner. However, can an Azure Subscription be switched from one partner to another if need be? It can indeed – it’s not a particularly elegant process involving a form and action required from both partners and the customer, but if you need to do it you can find instructions here: http://bit.ly/2PxC19J.
Office 365 Data Loss Prevention User SL
An Office 365 Data Loss Prevention User SL is added to the September 2018 Product Terms and Online Services Terms documents. The table on page 34 of the OST is updated to show that Office 365 DLP is included in Office 365 E3/E5, and there’s a new table on page 94 of the Product Terms showing that this new licence is an Add-on for users of Microsoft 365 F1 or Office 365 Business Essentials, for example. As far as availability goes, page 65 shows that it’s just available through the EA or CSP. Find both of these monthly-updated documents here: http://bit.ly/MSPTOST.
Office 365 Home and Personal Subscriptions
Microsoft announce changes to the rights for Office 365 Home and Personal subscriptions. From 2nd October 2018, subscribers to either plan can install Office on an unlimited number of devices and be signed into their accounts on up to five of those devices at the same time. Previous rights were 10 devices for Home, and one PC/Mac and one tablet for Personal subscribers. There’s also an increase of the number of users associated with a Home subscription from five to six. Find the Microsoft announcement here: http://bit.ly/2wzWX8d.
How Azure Reservations work with Azure SQL Database
Azure Reservations for the Azure SQL Database service became available earlier in August 2018 (see our blog post here: http://bit.ly/2KROzpp). If you want to understand more about how the reservation discount is applied automatically to running Azure SQL Databases then this is a useful article: http://bit.ly/2vX61UR.
Visio Visual for Power BI available
Microsoft announce (July 2018) that Visio Visual for Power BI is generally available. This allows a user to use Visio Online and Power BI together to illustrate and compare data as both diagrams and visualisations in one place. From a licensing perspective, Office 365 subscribers can use five free trial instances of Visio Visual and after that, any user can view visuals, and users licensed with Visio Online Plan 1 or Plan 2 can edit a Visio Visual in Power BI.
Find the announcement here: http://bit.ly/2P9zTom.