Newsletter Archives

  • January 2021 Office non-Security Updates are available

    The January 2021 Office non-Security updates have been released Tuesday, January 5, 2021. They are not included in the DEFCON-4 approval for the December 2020 patches. Unless you have a specific need to install them, you should wait until Susan Bradley (Patch Lady) approves them and any problems have been reported.

    Remember, Susan’s patching sequence and recommendations are based on a business environment that has IT support and may have time constraints on the updating process. Consumer patching should be more cautious due to limited technical and mechanical resources. The latter is the reason for the AskWoody DEFCON system.

    Office 2016
    Update for Microsoft Access 2016 (KB4484509)
    Update for Microsoft Office 2016 (KB4493157)
    Update for Microsoft Outlook 2016 (KB4493166)
    Update for Microsoft Project 2016 (KB4493159)

    There were no non-security listings for Office 2010 (which reached EOS on October 13, 2020) nor for Office 2013.
    On April 10, 2018, Office 2013 reached End of Mainstream Support. Extended Support will end for Office 2013 on April 11, 2023.
    Office 2016 also reached  End of Mainstream Support on October 13, 2020. EOS for Office 2016 is October 14, 2025.

    Updates are for the .msi version (persistent). Office 365 and C2R are not included.

    Security updates for all supported versions of Microsoft Office are released on the second Tuesday of the month (Patch Tuesday).

  • Microsoft removes non-subscription SKUs from Home Use Program

    Microsoft giveth and Microsoft taketh away. This may not affect many but is a nice perk if you work for a large company using Office. Here’s an article by Mary Jo Foley describing the details of the changes – [url=https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-removes-office-2019-from-its-home-use-program-benefits]Microsoft removes Office 2019 from its Home Use Program benefits[/url].

  • Of course you don’t want to buy Office 2019

    Nice of Microsoft to reinforce that point.

    Microsoft is saying more about its customers than its products with the three new ads. MS obviously doesn’t think its customers are savvy enough to figure out the “tests” are rigged to use features in Office 365 that aren’t in Office 2019. They aren’t Challenges. They’re feature demos.

    Of course the products are different. The feature sets are different. And, of course, reliance on the internet is different — when Microsoft’s servers go down, you can take your fancy cookie-cutter resume building program and stick it where the sun don’t shine.

    I guess that’s something good to know if you need to list the population of every state in a spreadsheet. Except it’s, you know, old data.

    I recall vividly that you couldn’t even get Excel to show updated stock quotes until a year ago. I moved to Google Sheets for that very reason. Never looked back.

    UPDATE: Still confused about the differences between Office 2019 and Office 365? Gregg Keizer at Computerworld just published an in-depth look. Suffice it to say the landscape’s changed greatly, and it’ll no doubt change again.

  • January 2019 non-Security Office Updates have been posted

    The January 2019 non-Security Office updates were released Wednesday, January 2, 2019. They are not included in the DEFCON4 approval for the December 2018 patches. Unless you have a specific need to install them, you should wait until Susan Bradley (Patch Lady) approves them and any problems have been reported.

    Office 2010

    Update for Microsoft Excel 2010 (KB4461627)
    Update for Microsoft Office 2010 (KB4032217)
    Update for Microsoft Office 2010 (KB4032225)
    Update for Microsoft Office 2010 (KB4461616)

    Office 2013

    Update for Microsoft Project 2013 (KB4461560)
    Update for Skype for Business 2015 (KB4461557)

    Office 2016

    Update for Skype for Business 2016 (KB4461586)
    Update for Microsoft Excel 2016 (KB4461600)
    Update for Microsoft Office 2016 (KB3203480)
    Update for Microsoft Office 2016 (KB4032230)
    Update for Microsoft Office 2016 (KB4461435)
    Update for Microsoft Office 2016 (KB4461533)
    Update for Microsoft Project 2016 (KB4461587)
    Update for Microsoft Visio 2016 (KB4461531)

    There were no non-security listings for Office 2007 (which is out of support).
    Office 365 and C2R are not included.
    Security updates for all supported versions of Microsoft Office are released on the second Tuesday of the month (Patch Tuesday).

    UPDATE: As of January 4, 2019, the four January 2019 Updates for Office 2010 (msi version) have been pulled by Microsoft and are no longer available for download. If you have problems with the Office programs, Microsoft recommends uninstalling the updates.

  • Terms announced for the “bought” version of Office 2019

    And they aren’t pretty.

    In the US, $440 will buy you one copy of Office Pro 2019, good for one PC. The ad goes on to say:

    Classic 2019 versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Outlook, plus Publisher and Access

    Microsoft support included for 60 days at no extra cost

    Licensed for home and commercial use All languages included. Compatible with Windows 10*

    *Go to office.com/systemrequirements for compatible versions of Windows 10 and for other feature requirements.

    The UWP/Metro/Microsoft Store version of OneNote (which isn’t available as a standard desktop app any more) has been free for years. It’s kinda ironic that Microsoft has orphaned the UWP versions of Office, while switching OneNote over to UWP (and Android and iOS and Mac and web). Then they offer the free UWP version of OneNote as a benefit for the very expensive Office Pro 2019.

    I mean, it’s pretty obvious MS doesn’t want to sell any of these, right? Or am I missing something?

  • The future of Office: Click-to-Run, on Win10 only

    Looks like Office is in for some major changes.

    The next version of Office, called Office 2019, is due out the gate in the second half of 2018.

    The official Changes to Office and Windows servicing and support document, posted yesterday, still has my head swimming.

    If I understand things correctly:

    • Office 2019 will be “Office 365-style” click-to-run only, unless you put it on a server. Starting with this new version, you have to rent Office, you can’t buy it.
    • Office 2019 will only run on currently-supported versions of Windows 10. But it will not run on Server 2016. That means you’ll have to keep your version of Win10 updated if you want to continue to rent Office 2019.
    • Office 2019 will not run on the current Long-Term Servicing version of Win10. But it will run on the new Win10 LTSC that will be released, sometime, later this year. Similarly, it won’t run on the current Server LTSC, but will run on the new Server LTSC, due out sometime this year.

    Martin Brinkmann has a good explainer on ghacks.

    Mary Jo Foley tackles the topic from a functional perspective on ZDNet.

    (Personally, I’m moving almost everything over to Google Docs and Sheets. I have a couple of complex macros — including the KBNew lister — that will continue to need Excel, but Excel 2013 works fine, and I own it. Win10 All-In-One For Dummies submissions have to go in Word. So far, anyway — the editorial staff may figure out Google Docs one of these days. But I’ve moved everything else to Google Docs and Sheets. Suggest you do, too.)

  • Office 2007 End Of Life is only days away

    Are you still using Office 2007? If so, October 10th will be the last day you will be able to receive:

    Technical support for issues
    Bug fixes for issues that are discovered
    Security fixes for vulnerabilities that are discovered

    You can check out the Microsoft Support page with the details here

    Meanwhile, the recent announcement of Office 2019, due to be released next year, being offline/desktop software has been greeted with headlines such as:

    Scared of that new-fangled ‘cloud’? Office 2019 to the rescue!
    Next release promises nice offline features
    (on theregister.co.uk)

    Microsoft Office 2019 Coming in Second Half of 2018
    New Standalone Version of Microsoft Office Coming in 2018
    (on groovypost.com)