Microsoft has confirmed that it will be halting new feature development for Office apps (Microsoft 365) on Windows 10 starting in August 2026. Fortunately, you’ll still get security updates for your Office apps on Windows 10 until October 2028, but nothing else.

Anyone with Microsoft 365 Personal, Family, and business subscriptions has to upgrade to Windows 11 if they want to get new features after August 2026. However, Microsoft will delay the cutoff of new Office features for monthly enterprise channel users on Windows 10 on October 13, 2026, followed by semi-annual enterprise channel users on January 12, 2027.

Now, you might remember that Microsoft performed a bit of a U-turn on security updates for Office apps on Windows 10 earlier this year. But at that time, the company didn’t mention that new features would be cut off starting in 2026. This change basically forces your hand. If you want the latest Microsoft 365 features, you’ll have to upgrade to Windows 11.

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Windows 10 Won’t Lose Microsoft 365 Apps in 2025

Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and other Microsoft 365 apps will keep working on Windows 10, at least for a while.

It’s worth mentioning that Windows 10 officially goes end of life on October 14, 2025. Microsoft will still make security updates for Office apps on Windows 10 until October 10, 2028. This is good news for security, but it doesn’t change the fact that you’ll be stuck with the current feature set.

Microsoft has been trying to get Windows 10 users to upgrade to Windows 11 before the end of support cutoff in October. Despite Windows 11 finally overtaking Windows 10 as the most used desktop OS, there are still millions of devices out there running Windows 10.

You can even extend security updates for another year, free of charge, if you’re willing to enable Windows Backup. This seems like a decent option if you’re not ready to jump to Windows 11 just yet, but it won’t get you those new Office features. Microsoft 365 is already unsupported on older operating systems like Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1, so this isn’t entirely new territory for the company.

Even with this being normal for Microsoft, it’s tough to sell a new operating system like Windows 11, mostly because many PCs aren’t even eligible for the upgrade due to hardware requirements. This would be a good time to move to Linux if you don’t have a PC that can handle the upgrade to 11.

It’s a bit of a tough pill to swallow if you’re happy with Windows 10, but that’s how it is when you use a Windows operating system. So, if you rely on new features in Microsoft 365, it might be time to start thinking about that upgrade.

Source: The Verge