[German]U-turn at Microsoft regarding the support of Microsoft 365 apps (Word, Excel, etc.) on Windows Server 2022. As recently as December 2021, Microsoft had emphasized that there was no support for the MS 265 apps in question on the operating system. Those affected should switch to Azure Virtual Desktop or Windows 365. Now it became known that Microsoft wants to support the Microsoft 365 apps under Windows Server 2022 in the future. It should already work for Insiders.
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Support for Microsoft 365 apps in Server 2022
I had pointed out Microsoft's position about MS365 support for Windows Server 2022 in October 2021 in the post Windows Server 2022: Microsoft 365 Apps unsupported. I myself do not follow the topic in detail, since I have nothing to do with server operating systems. But in Microsoft's tech community, there is a user post Support for M365 Apps (O365) on Windows 2022 that addresses the lack of support.
The poster has a large number of Windows Server 2016 instances running Microsoft 365 apps (Office 365) and wrote in early December 2021 that he needs to update those servers. He made it "incendiary" in his post, wasn't the end of support for Windows Server 2016 January 2022 (that's not so true, that's when active support ended, Extended Support still runs until January 12, 2027).
The Windows/Office configuration support matrix indicates that Windows Server 2022 does not support Microsoft 365 apps. So the affected person would have to switch to Windows Server 2019 to continue using these Microsoft 365 apps.
Mary Hoffman from Microsoft confirmed to the thread creator, citing above matrix, that Microsoft 365 apps will only be supported on Windows Server 2016 and 2019 until October 2025. Microsoft 365 app would not be supported on Windows Server 2022, and there are no plans to change these published support positions. After 2025, customers should consider the following solutions:
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- Switch to Azure Virtual Desktop,
- Switching to Windows 365,
- or hosting M365 apps on a supported client VM.
The whole thing didn't go over too well with affected customers, as this conflicts with the workflow in various companies.
M365 app support coming for Server 2022
As of September 6, 2022, Elden Christensen, Principal Group PM Manager on the Windows Server Development Team, has updated the above statements from Microsoft. Based on user feedback, Microsoft has fundamentally rethought its position and plans to implement support for Microsoft 365 Apps on Windows Server 2022. Here is the statement from Christensen:
First off I would like to thank everyone for the feedback and apologize for the delay in responding to this thread. Your feedback has made a difference, and sparked many internal discussions…
I would like to inform to our insiders community that we do intend to support M365 on Windows Server 2022.
We need to conduct some validation before we fully support in production, but I would like to encourage everyone to begin testing now and please provide feedback to help expedite getting to a comfort level to reach production level support. Getting customer feedback and validation is a critical piece to reaching production support.
In a nutshell: Microsoft will support Microsoft 365 apps on Windows Server 2022. Thanks to Andy A. for the tip.
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