It’s official: Microsoft will no longer support Office 365 applications running on a Windows Server 2022. Read on – when will Microsoft Office Support end?
Yes, you heard correctly! You will not be able to run full-blown Word, Excel, Outlook or PowerPoint on your beloved Remote Desktop Services / Citrix environments.
You can install Windows 2019 and have Office running (supported) until October 2025, but after this, it will be officially unsupported — you will not be able to get help from Microsoft.
When are the end dates?

This marks the beginning of the end of delivering Microsoft 365 to your end users using the traditional method of Remote Desktop Services / Citrix, especially if you deliver a desktop environment.
You may ask: What do Microsoft expect us to do? Do they have no comprehension of what any Office-aware applications need to fully function? Do they believe that all clients are now running on a pure SaaS model?
Fear not! At Fusion, we have been following this move carefully and have ensured that we can continue to offer a solution, should you want to host your own compute, move into a private cloud — or even the public cloud.
Whether it’s a migration to a different software suite other than Microsoft 365 or assistance and advice on how to minimise the disruption to your software stack, FusionIT are the people to call when you need to get help.
What do I do for the moment?
- Think hard before you sign up for any Remote Desktop Services / Citrix licenses that you need to deliver Microsoft 365/ Office applications and ensure longevity past the October 2025 date. Most firms we deal with like to see at least around four years ROI on any current day expenditure.
- Wait for Microsoft to U-turn! Though this could be highly risky, especially if they leave it to the 11th hour. This is big and will create lots of noise, and I would be surprised if Microsoft do rethink their position on this. There is method in their madness and other technologies are available to replace what we have achieved with thin clients over the past 28 years since WinFrame hit the shelves.
- Buy cloud centric. When looking into prospective application solutions – ensure they can be delivered directly from the desktop. We acknowledge this isn’t always possible and many of the best business applications out in the field still need some server compute or a backend database to serve them. At Fusion, we know that the industry is littered with such applications, some of which we developed before the “thin client” was even a thing.
- Reach out to us! We can discuss your options.
Want to talk about solutions?
Contact us today to talk with our expert team about how you can get help with Office 365 and where/ how you deliver it to your users.