Office 2010 Professional Plus subscription ending

Anyone subscribing to Microsoft Office 365 Plan E3 or E4 and using Office 2010 Professional Plus under that Office 365 subscription should be aware that their software will enter “Reduced Functionality Mode” some time in June this year (2014). This is happening because Microsoft is going to stop supporting the 2010 release of Office Professional Plus in favour of the current version, Office 2013. This only affects customers who subscribe to Office 2010 Professional Plus. If you bought Office 2010 software outright then nothing will change; you bought perpetual rights to use the software and you will still have those rights. If you are a subscription customer, the way round the problem is to upgrade your computers to the 2013 release of the Office software. This won’t cost any more as it’s already included in your Office 365 Plan E3 or E4 subscription. A little time will be required for the upgrade, and you should make sure that any linked programs will continue to work with Office 2013. Most should be OK, but take care with Microsoft Access 2010 databases which must be tested in the new version before going live with Access 2013. As usual, Microsoft’s policy of calling different products and services by very similar names can make it difficult to work out what software you’ve bought and what you’re entitled to. In our line of work we have to understand software licensing so we’ll be pleased to hear from you if you need a guide through the maze.