Microsoft is announcing the end of support and retirement for Office Online Server effective December 31, 2026.
After this date, Office Online Server will no longer receive security updates, bug fixes, or technical support from Microsoft. This change is part of our ongoing commitment to modernizing productivity experiences and focusing on cloud-first solutions. To help stay secure and compliant, begin planning now to move to supported options, such as Microsoft 365.
This announcement does not apply to products that integrate with Office Online Server, such as Exchange Server Subscription Edition, SharePoint Server Subscription Edition, or Skype for Business Server Subscription Edition, which will continue to be supported.
For more details, check this blog post:
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I read the linked MS article, but I still have a question… I understand that SharePoint Subscription Edition won’t be end of support until at least 2035. But I was wondering if I could get clarification on this statement “does not apply to products that integrate with Office Online Server, such as Exchange Server Subscription Edition, SharePoint Server Subscription Edition, or Skype for Business Server Subscription Edition, which will continue to be supported.” Are we saying that Office Online Server will be retired Dec 31 so we will have to decommission it if it’s currently integrated with our SharePoint SE server? Just want to make sure I get my facts straight before I tell the boss that we will have to use the desktop client starting Dec 2026 for office documents in on-premise SharePoint. 🙂
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Hi Dominique,
after December 2026 Office Online Server will go out of support and retaining it might be a security risk as no further fixes will be provided.
Using Desktop Clients might be the only secure option for OnPrem.
Cheers,
Stefan
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thanks!
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I feel a sudden urge to ask what Microsofts commitment are to those customers that cannot follow this cloud-first focus and therefore insists on on-prem. Will the benefits from OOS disappear from Microsoft/SharePoint if one does not succomb and go online?
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I also want to emphasize loudly that I’m not shouting at Stefan – Mr. Gossner has saved my sorry SP a$$ on numerous occations 😀
Without this blog, I’d be lost in deep water.
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This announcement REALLY pisses me off (sorry for the language).
We have huge customers in public and defence sector. They are not the type of customers that want to place all their eggs in the cloud basket.
SharePoint Server together with OOS creates an acceptable work environment for the employees. OOS also adds the value of not needing to have Office desktop applications installed on “lightweight” clients.
What is really Microsofts strategy here I ask myself. This news will have HUGE negative effects on all of us as MS partners as well as for the customers when we bring this to their attention.
Sad to say but this was NOT a good morning.
Our high sensitive (on-prem) customers will be VERY upset.
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Hi Fredrik,
I understand your point.
My suggestion would be that you and the custoemrs you represent reach out to your CSAMs or other Microsoft representativ and escalate this accordingly.
Cheers,
Stefan
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Thanks Stefan. I want to make it clear that I do not blame You of course.
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🙂
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Are very upset 😉
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Hi Stefan!
I work in the same sector as Fredrik above. Many using SharePoint SE + OOS either in hybrid setup or air gapped.
This really sucks big time for them.
I do see a big miss from you, thinking that everyone can sooner or later go online. This is not the case for NSI information in most countries.
You need to re-think your strategy.
Best Reg Magnus
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Hi Magnus,
I fully understand your point.
As you used “you” in your wording: I’m part of the support organization, not of engineering.
Similar to you I learned about this decision yesterday and added the blog post to raise awareness.
Cheers,
Stefan
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Thanks for raising this Stefan.
What would be the correct channels to address this issue?
Best Reg Magnus
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Hi Magnus,
I would use three parallel approachs:
1) add a comment on my blog as I will consolidate the feedback (done)
2) contact your CSAM or if you are a partner working with Enterprise customers ask them to contact their CSAM to escalate this
3) leave a valuable comment in the original blog post from the product group which is referenced above.
Cheers,
Stefan
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Valuable comment in the original blog post from the product group which is referenced above – Done
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👍
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I can’t believe the mess that Microsoft has created with the end of support for Office Online! For years, we’ve relied on this service for its reliability, simplicity, and the ability to stay productive without needing to jump through hoops. But now—just like that—they’re pulling the plug. This move is absolutely infuriating.
For those of us who CANNOT make the leap to a full cloud-based environment, this is a massive problem. Not every company can operate fully online! We have serious privacy, security, and compliance requirements that can’t just be brushed aside for the sake of “convenience” in the cloud. Microsoft have lost it.
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Hi all,
please use this space to share your thoughts — I’ll compile and convey them to the team leading this initiative. Input with specific examples of how this decision impacts you (as Frederick did) will be especially valuable. In addition, feel free to reach out to your CSAMs or other Microsoft contacts to voice any concerns concurrently.
Cheers,
Stefan
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Hello, Is Microsoft planning extended support (extra 5 years?) like for the other MS products?
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Hi Szymon,
you are talking about product which follow the “Fixed Lifecycle Policy”:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/policies/fixed
Office Online Server follows the Modern Lifecycle Policy:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/policies/modern
In Modern Lifecycle policy there is no mainstream or extended support.
Cheers,
Stefan
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As a government organization, we cannot move to Microsoft 365 due to strict security and data sovereignty requirements.
Office Online Server is essential for on-premises collaboration. Retiring it without a true on-prem alternative leaves public sector organizations without a viable solution.
We hope Microsoft reconsiders this decision — on-prem is not going away for everyone.
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Hello Stefan,
at first I really want to thank you for your hard work throughout the years and there is not a single patch day where I do not look into you blog and decide afterwards if I will patch SharePoint or not … as I did not last month.
Unfortunately I do have the feeling that a lot of good people at Microsoft are retired or nearly there and the rest is only AI. Every month there are so many bugs in all Microsoft products that I really can understand that Microsoft will only want to have the cloud and nothing on premises anymore: more money and they can better disguise their crap they are creating nowadays.
As already been written there are companies which cannot go into the cloud because there are regulations on the one and a commen sense on the other side which keep them away.
I do hope that Micosoft resonsiders this decision, but there were other large companies which also failed in a large scale, because they thought they know exactly what the customers need.
Thank you once again for your really exceptional work.
Best regards
Gerald
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👍
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This is really bad decision from Microsoft. I have multiple customers that are for reason using SharePoint On-premises, and this Office online server product is important part of farm and functionalities. It shows very poor judgment to force high-security customers to move to the cloud by discontinuing the product. It would be only reasonable to allow several years of transition time and to guarantee customers the option to remain in their own on-premises environments.
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We have a gov’t org with tens of thousands of employees and dozens of on-prem SharePoint farms. OOS is THE most celebrated and utilized functions for collaboration and ease of viewing/editing documents, so much so that if it’s down for just an hour my inbox will be full of people asking for it to be brought back up. Management is down our throats and we have to send a blast email about the outage. It’s heavily used.
Our security plan forbids us from using software that is EOL so this would be a major blow of functionality for users, We have a mediocre sized gov365 tenant but the top-down policy there is no customizations, no SPFx, and very limited space (just recently at the turn of the fiscal year we had to pare down storage massively bringing it back on-prem because we were already against the limits of the contract). All of that (among other reasons) to say that OOS going away will not be a catalyst to move all of our on-prem SP to 365. Rather, just a nail in our coffin as we try to deal with the user blowback of this beloved feature no longer being there.
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Wow, what a big stab at SharePoint on-prem. Feels like a deliberate push to M365 which won’t work for all organizations.
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We are also an IT department for a public organization. We don’t just use SharePoint on-Premises because we want to, but also because we have to in order to comply with legal requirements. Office Online Server is a critical component for our SharePoint on-Premises farm, our Exchange on-Premises installation, and, of course, for the user experience. We sincerely hope that Microsoft will reconsider this decision.
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Microsoft did it again: this is the OneNote moment.
A really ugly move, I have to state.
SharePoint without OOS ist crippleware.
Customers pay a lot and they should demand the services, they paid for, just my 2cents.
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Hi, also from a public organization. Based on everything moving to the cloud we recently started our planning to move over to open source, leaving MS complete. A long journey, which will cost money and time, but we can’t move to the cloud because of legeal requirements.
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Hi Stefan how Office files from Sharepoint SE could be used in the Browser without the Office Online Server? A Mapping to M365 Web Apps is not possible right?
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Hi MD,
it will not be possible. You can use them only with rich client applications installed on the users machine like Word or Excel.
Cheers,
Stefan
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For many environments, Office Online Server is not only a quality-of-life product but also a security product. I’ve seen multiple environments that utilize it to edit files without the ability to download them by design.
If this goes forward, we’ll have to go back to the drawing board to edit data in place, without the ability to copy it, as required by some security plans.
If Microsoft truly wants Cloud first, there first needs to be fully fleshed out replacements for these air gapped environments that have proper support channels. It’s not that we don’t want M365… it’s just not there yet…
Microsoft needs to be asking themselves “Are we pushing our customers towards cloud, or away from Microsoft products?” Back customers into a corner and we’ll all be using LibreOffice sooner or later.
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I will also voice my complete surprise. We also work in the government contract world that will not allow migration to M365. This will also affect document previews as they depend on OOS to render the preview.
Having OOS available greatly improves productivity and will negatively impact our user base.
I certainly hope Microsoft hears there customers loud and clear and reconsiders.
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Hello, I hope this unfortunate decision will be reconsidered by Microsoft.
One of our sister companies is entirely on Linux. They have been using OOS for many years to edit project MS Office documents on SharePoint, and currently, we cannot imagine any other way to collaborate on these documents with Linux users. The current method is simple and working.
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Stefan,
Thanks for the heads up. I’ve taken all the recommended steps you provided of posting comments on the two blogs and contacting my CSAM.
I support a large implementation of SharePoint SE for a customer who cannot move to the cloud by December 2026. Losing OOS, along with SP Designer, InfoPath, and 2010 Style workflows in 2026 is really going to hurt us.
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I will add that this critical decision and its rapid implementation date is very alarming.
Consider that messaging around retirement of InfoPath carried on for over a decade…. this feels like a slap in the face.
Removing support for OOS will cripple on-prem SharePoint farms that need to persist on-prem.
Very sad.
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We as a university are trying to make the full transition to M365, but that will still take years. If it will even be possible at all.
But that’s not easy, because for every additional feature you want to use, you usually have to pay extra. Most of the time, we can’t afford that as a university, so we have to switch to non-Microsoft products or stay on SharePoint SE.
On top of that, Microsoft has decided in 2024 to drastically reduce storage quota for universities. We’re currently backed into a corner because of this and are looking for solutions to bring data back to on Prem solutions .
And then this announcement. We thought we were safe for years with our most important applications in SharePoint SE in combination with the ‘new’ SharePoint Workflow Manager and OOS.
Due to the complexity of our network, not everyone is in the SharePoint domain and therefore cannot connect directly to the SharePoint servers. Many users have to connect through IDP and WAP, which causes them to have to sign in to the Office app every time they open a document on SharePoint. We solved this ‘inconvenience’ by forcing library documents to open in the browser (OOS).
+ We also have a digital learning environment for all our students that relies on this OOS application.
We never expected Microsoft to suddenly discontinue OOS. This is going to hurt a lot :-(.
If this is Microsoft’s strategy, many customers will start looking for alternatives — especially non-profit organizations.
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-Word and PowerPoint desktop apps do support co-authoring with SharePoint Server SE and 2019.
-Excel co-authoring works only in Excel Online when integrated with SharePoint Server via OOS.
-For full desktop co-authoring functionality, you need to use SharePoint Online or OneDrive for Business with Excel for Microsoft 365 and AutoSave enabled.
Our management team co-auth excel sheets regularly using excel online, without OOS that function will be gone. Feels like M$ is pushing us to use M365 and SharePoint online. Unless Excel desktop improves itself and make it possible to co-auth using SharePoint SE.
No, I don’t blame Stefan.
People will start look for alternatives such as Linux and open collaboration services.
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What a disgrace to us loyal customers. Keep treating us like garbage.
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But, OOS its’ a big part of SharePoint SE that is big part of Microsoft365 Local. This decision by MS is a big joke.
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The retirement of OOS came as a complete surprise to us and it is not clear how to replace it if SharePoint has to stay on-prem for regulatory reasons. With our clients being mostly in the Banking industry, moving to the Cloud is not an option. Removing the ability to view and edit Office documents in the browser diminishes the value of SharePoint SE dramatically.
I would heavily vote for Microsoft to re-think this, or to at least have kind of a (paid) ESU option, so you can get security updates for OOS after the end of 2026.
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I agree with all of the comments opposing Microsoft’s announcement to retire OOS in 14 months. For my company, it will force us to either buy M365 for more users and migrate content to SPO, or to buy licensing and deploy locally installed MSOffice to more PCs.
For those who can’t or won’t migrate to the cloud, obviously it permanently removes features that have been integrated into SharePoint Server for many years with no alternative.
Even if my company decides to fork-over the large pile of cash that either of the cloud alternatives will cost, we’ll only have 14 months to finish the project to remain fully supported and patched. I don’t know about the rest of you, but my company is still deep into a business process automation project that was caused by Microsoft’s decision to end support of the SharePoint 2010 workflow engine on July 14, 2026. (No, we did not choose Power Platform, thank goodness.)
We’ve added contractors and consultants, and we still aren’t going to make the July 2026 deadline, so the announced OOS deadline of December 2026 being only 14 months from now is a very short period of time for us to add another major migration or deployment project to our plate.
Has anyone else informed Microsoft that we don’t work for them? Why is my project list cluttered with tasks that are reactions to Microsoft’s decisions and fixes to unannounced security ‘enhancements’ caused by patches, rather than projects that enhance the efficiency and profitability of my own company?
I’ve contacted our Microsoft rep, and I hope all of you do the same. As a group, maybe we can force Microsoft to reverse course on the OOS announcement.
Microsoft is a sales company, not a technology company anymore, so let’s be frank: this decision is purely about money. If they actually listen to customers and keep OOS around, my guess is Microsoft would create a new licensing model for OOS that would ensure they capture a pile of our money that is just as deep and just as high as it would have been to implement either of the alternatives I mentioned.
My obvious ire for Microsoft notwithstanding, I value the information you share very much, Stefan. I appreciate you continuing to provide the most valuable SharePoint admin blog in world, world, world! (echo-effect).
Keep the faith, and push back hard, gang!
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This is a shocking and sudden announcement.
One of those moments where if Microsoft did not have the market position it does … Non-Microsoft alternatives would and will be recommended ..
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Stefan, thank you for collecting the community’s feedback. Our concerns match the comments others have made. We support many organizations, thousands of customers, and we have to support both M365 and on-prem workloads. OOS with SharePoint provides real efficiencies and capability to customers within banking, legal, medical, education, and government domains. OOS supports very serious work.
The deprecation of on-prem workflows, and now OOS, erodes customer confidence and I suspect many will seek other options. Continued investment in OOS/SPSE would buoy customer confidence in Microsoft and its platforms, whether on-prem or cloud.
Aligning with Sandra’s comment, we ask for an extension for OOS that matches the recently announced support timeline for SPSE (2035) or a reasonable ESU program for long-term customers.
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Hi Chad,
if you need this please contact your CSAM and escalate this issue.
Cheers,
Stefan
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We also have several customers in the government and banking sectors who are required to remain on-premises. In particular, the announcement is rather short notice, as these customers have already integrated OOS into their business processes or just switched to SharePoint SE.
What will happen to the useful rendering preview feature in the search results?
Will there be an implemented on-premises version, or will the feature be completely discontinued?
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Hi Oliver,
it will most likely disappear.
If this is business critical and they cannot use rich clients (Office Client), ask each of your government customers to escalate this through their CSAM.
Cheers,
Stefan
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Even I wholeheartedly agree with the customer comments as I too am one of them.
OOS is really a useful product for on-prem users.
This needs to escalate.
Stefan please advise how can this be taken up.
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Hi Amey,
ensure to contact your CSAM at Microsoft to escalate the issue.
The more customers are complaining the better.
Cheers,
Stefan