[German]Microsoft reached last week into its marketing bag of tricks again and put some questionable things on the table to promote Windows 11. It says that "Windows 11 is free for a short time". And another joke is unpacked: Microsoft writes that support for the Microsoft 365 apps under Windows 10 will end when it ceases to receive regular updates on October 14, 2025.
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What is it all about?
On October 14, 2025, Microsoft Windows 10 22H2 will reach its planned end of support. From November 2025, there will no longer be any regular security updates and Microsoft will also discontinue support. However, in the blog post Windows 10: End of support in October 2025 – Million systems about to be replaced? I outlined the options available to users to keep Windows 10 supplied with all updates for years to come. So don't panic, Windows 10 can be operated securely even after October 2025 (at least as securely as Microsoft can manage with security updates).
On the other hand, I don't think things are really going well for Microsoft when it comes to the mass migration of users to Windows 11. This is understandable for me when I look at the bugs and problems the manufacturer has delivered so far with Windows 11 24H2, the copilot climbs and other snags.
Marketing trick: Windows 11 is free for a short time
Microsoft has proclaimed 2025 as the year to switch to Windows 11 (see my post Microsoft: 2025 will be the year of Windows 11 PC updates). But it makes no sense to buy a Copilot+PC to finally get to Windows 11. Even those who are AI-savvy would just buy a piece of expensive hardware, the AI chips can't really be used under Windows 11 due to a lack of software. And gamers are finding that the new hardware of the Copilot+PC products even "leaves something to be desired" in terms of performance.
It looks as if Microsoft has projected somewhere past the market. What are they doing to possibly fuel a sluggish transition? This week, Microsoft published a blog post (which has since been deleted) stating that "Windows 11 is free for a short time".
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Microsoft's marketing department has reached deep into the moth box of dirty tricks and published an extremely "sausagey" article that somehow praises the advantages of Windows 11.
And somewhere in there is the sentence that "Windows 11 is free for Windows 10 users for a limited time". I skimmed through the text, which I thought was a bit confusing, and didn't find prices for Windows 11 Upgrades (after the free promotion) nor deadlines for the end of the free promotion.
Gives me the impression that the perceived desperation in marketing at Microsoft must be very high to resort to such means. The whole thing was probably so weird that Microsoft has since deleted the blog post again, as Windows Latest, for example, states here. Microsoft's post is still available in the Internet archive.
Windows 10: No Office apps support after October 2025
And there was a second marketing bullshit bing article from Microsoft, which is intended to encourage Windows 10 users to switch to Windows 11 as soon as possible. In the support article What Windows end of support means for Office and Microsoft 365, Microsoft talks about what the end of Windows 10 support means for users of Microsoft 365 subscriptions and the use of Office 365 apps.
Microsoft states that Microsoft 365 apps will no longer be supported on Windows 10 after the end of support on October 14, 2025. Just to remember: Microsoft is offering three years of ESU support for corporate customers with Windows 10 so that these operating systems continue to receive security updates. And for IoT versions of Windows 10, there is even support until 2031. But Microsoft plans to discontinue support for Office 365 from October 2025, really?
The article then rehashes old cheese from the day before yesterday, with Redmond writing that Microsoft 365 apps are no longer supported on Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 8.1, as these operating systems have reached the end of their support. However, the end of support was some time ago – just for the record.
Of course, in a Microsoft article like this, it is important to note that in order to avoid performance and reliability problems, we recommend switching to Windows 11.
You can also translate it: Exactly nothing will happen on October 14, 2025, the Office 365 apps will work just as well or just as badly as before on Windows 10. If there is one of the popular Office 365 bugs on Windows 10, it will most likely also affect Windows 11 users. And people who have purchased licenses for Office 2021, 2024 etc. can continue to use their Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc.
In the text, Microsoft then also admits: "If you run Microsoft 365 on a Windows 10 device after this date, the applications will continue to work as before. However, we strongly recommend upgrading to Windows 11 to avoid performance and reliability issues over time." So here, too, a contribution that is actually unnecessary and, in my view, is only intended to act preventively and creates FUD.
Time for the Microsoft exit?Zeit für den Microsoft Exit?
Which brings me to the question: How much can and should I trust a provider that uses such dubious methods? Wouldn't it be time to think about reducing the dependencies on Microsoft with regard to the Microsoft 365 apps (Office applications)?
Neither an Office 365 nor one of the modern Office 2019, 2021, 2024 versions is running here in my production environment, although I even have licenses for Office 2019/2021 (I wrote books about Microsoft Office, even for Microsoft Press Germany). An old MS Office 2000 is enough for me to edit my old manuscripts with Word 2000. I also have Libre Office running on my Windows 10 system and can also use Softmaker Office.
II have never used Microsoft Outlook productively. I actually always uninstalled Outlook as soon as I had written the relevant books on the new Microsoft Office versions for Microsoft Press or Pearson, and at most I ran a copy in a virtual machine for test purposes. I never wanted to become dependent on Outlook, as this version had to be installed.
After a test in 2009, in which I had Microsoft Live Mail running on Windows 7 for 3 months and ran into broken mail stores twice, I decided to use Thunderbird Portable. The portable version also runs without installation and I can even access it from various computers via the network if necessary. Thunderbird has been running here for mails and appointments since then and has always been able to display all the contents of the mail store. So I'm independant from Microsoft Office, and I can also use the LibreOffice applications and Thunderbird under Linux.
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