This popular productivity software is losing all support in 2026

· The Fresno Bee

While my company actually uses Google’s suite of products, I personally pay for Microsoft’s Office 365.

That’s because I’ve used Word since college in 1991 and find anything else a challenge.

Google, however, has overtaken Microsoft when it comes to the sheer number of people using its office suite of products.

Microsoft has a 39.07% share of the market while Google commands 55.88%, according to a report from Datanyze.

While the company does not break out user numbers for Office, Microsoft 365 Commercial seats grew 6% in the second quarter, driven by small and medium businesses and frontline worker offerings, while Microsoft 365 Consumer subscriber growth was 6%.

Not all Office users, however, subscribe to Office 365.

Office 2021 remains installed on PCs and Macs used by consumers and businesses, but Microsoft does not disclose how many people still use the software.

Those users, however, who bought the software suite as a one-time purchase with a perpetual license, will soon be losing product support

“Support for Office 2021 will end October 13, 2026 and there will be no extension and no extended security updates. All of your Office 2021 apps may continue to function. However, you could expose yourself to serious and potentially harmful security risks,” Microsoft shared on its website.

What end of support means for you after October 13, 2026

  • Microsoft will no longer provide technical support, bug fixes, or security fixes for Office 2021 vulnerabilities that may be subsequently reported or discovered. This includes security updates that can help protect your PC from harmful viruses, spyware, and other malicious software.
  • You’ll no longer receive Office 2021 software updates.
  • You’ll no longer receive phone or chat technical support.

  • No further updates to support content will be provided and most online help content will be retired.

Microsoft offered advice for customers who don’t want to upgrade to an Office 365 subscription.

“If you’re using Office 2021 at home (such as, Office Home & Student 2021 or Office Home & Business 2021), you’ll still be able to use it, but we recommend you upgrade to a newer version of Office so you can stay up to date with all the latest features, patches, and security updates,” the company wrote,

Microsoft does sell a 2024 one-time-purchase version of the Office suite.

On the same day, Microsoft will also drop support for the enterprise version of Office 2021.

“Office LTSC 2021 will reach end of support on October 13, 2026. After this date, Microsoft will no longer provide technical support, bug fixes, or security updates for this product. This may increase your organization’s exposure to security risks and could impact compliance requirements,” the company posted.

More Microsoft:

Microsoft offered similar upgrade advice for business users.

“To remain in a supported environment, begin upgrading to Microsoft 365 Apps now. For organizations that are not yet ready to move to the cloud, the recommended upgrade path is to the most recent supported on premises version for commercial customers, Office LTSC 2024,” it added.

What this means for Office 2021 users

In July, Accrued Consulting, an independent Microsoft 365 consulting firm, shared what this change means.

“If your company still runs perpetual Office 2021 on desktops — even next to a Microsoft 365 tenant for email — this is a planning deadline, not a surprise. There is no Extended Security Updates program for Office 2021 the way some organizations hoped for after older Windows or Office cycles. Unsupported clients keep running; they just stop getting patches,” the company posted on its website.

Accrued Consulting explained the risks to business users, which also apply to individuals.

“Many businesses buy Microsoft 365 for Exchange Online and Teams, then leave Word, Excel, and Outlook on older perpetual installs. That split creates avoidable risk,” the company shared.

Those risks include:

  • Unpatched Office clients remain a malware and document exploit path.
  • Features, security defaults, and cloud integrations lag behind Microsoft 365 Apps.
  • Support tickets become harder when Microsoft no longer services the client version.
  • Compliance and cyber insurance reviews often ask whether productivity software is supported.

“Email in the cloud does not magically keep a 2021 desktop suite supported,” the consulting firm shared.

Satya Nadella discusses subscriptions

Clearly any company would prefer recurring subscription revenue to a one-time sale.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, however, thinks there are benefits for companies in using a subscription-based product.

“Subscriptions are just entitlements because it’s easier to budget, right? Like why doesn’t everybody just do consumption? The reason why everybody doesn’t do consumption is sometimes it’s easier to forecast,” he said at a March Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference.

He does, however, see a change coming to the subscription model because of the cost of using artificial intelligence (AI).

“I think the combination of subscriptions with some limits of usage plus a meter is where I think we will end up,” he added.

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This story was originally published October 5, 2026 at 1:12 PM.