Microsoft has given commercial customers running older versions of Outlook 2 months to upgrade before losing access to the company’s Microsoft 365 and Office 365 services.
The deadline given is November 1 and this is coming after a year that the company stopped support for older versions of Office connecting to its online services, such as Exchange Online.
This is according to a blog post that stated that after November 1, 2021, only Outlook 2013 Service Pack 1 (with latest fixes) and later will be able to connect to Microsoft 365 services.
Recalled that just last year, Microsoft dropped support for older versions of Office connecting to its online services, such as Exchange Online.
The affected version of Office includes Office 2007, which was already out of all support; Office 2010, which was to exit support in October 2020; and Office 2013, which was to receive support until April 2023. The support-on-services shutdown had been in the works since 2017.
Office 2007, Office 2010, and Office 2013 if not upgraded by Nov. 1 will be cut off from Microsoft 365 services.
The company had surprisingly stated then that while support would officially end, that didn’t necessarily mean the end of connectivity. However, that has changed now going by the November 1 deadline given to cut off older Outlook versions from 356 Services, if they failed to upgrade with the latest fixes.
Microsoft explained that the older Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010 clients will be incompatible with two upcoming changes to services, including an end to support for Basic Authentication — essentially, the long-standard username + password combination — that was postponed in February 2021.
The company didn’t however state when it would drop Basic Auth support.