The preview period is over. Microsoft is making Office 2019 generally available starting today, September 24, for Windows and Mac.
Also: Windows 10 how-to: Ed Bott’s free tech support guide
As Microsoft officials have said previously, the Office 2019 feature list is a subset of what Office 365 ProPlus subscribers get. The 2019 release adds some of the key Office features that Microsoft already has rolled out to its Office 365 subscribers over the past three years.
Office 2019 is going out first to volume licensees, starting today. It will be available to other consumer and commercial customers in the next few weeks, officials said. And Project, Visio, Access and Publisher are available for Windows only.
Also: Microsoft Surface: Rumored specs, features, leaks, price, release date CNET
Microsoft plans to roll out the 2019 releases of its on-premises business servers, including Exchange Server 2019, Skype for Business Server 2019, SharePointServer 2019 and Project Server 2019 “in the coming weeks.”
Also: Microsoft: 5 tips for developers to reduce malware TechRepublic
Just a reminder: Office 2019 will only run on Windows 10, not Windows 7/8.1 and in the case of the server apps, Windows Server 2019. The Office 2019 client apps also will be released as Click-to-Run only. Microsoft won’t be providing a MSI option for Office 2019 clients, but will continue to do so for Office Server products.
Microsoft recently relented on some of its previously stated support cut-off dates for Office on various variants of Windows. Office 2016 will continue to work with Office 365 back-end services through October 2023 now. In addition, Microsoft is going to provide five years of mainstream support and approximately two years of extended support so as to align with the extended-support end date for Office 2016 (which is Oct. 14, 2025).
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