Microsoft pushes back end of support for Exchange Server 2010 by nine months

Microsoft is pushing back its announced end of support date for Exchange Server 2010. Instead of cutting off security updates for the product on January 14, 2020, Microsoft is now planning to drop free support for the product on October 13, 2020.

Microsoft officials announced the push back on September 16. They said they made the adjustment “after investigating and analyzing the deployment state of an extensive number of Exchange customers.” Officials added: “We also know that some of you are in the midst of upgrades to a newer version of Exchange Server on-premises, or more transformative migrations to the cloud with Office 365 and Exchange Online.”

The October 13, 2020 date aligns with the end of support for Office 2010 and SharePoint Server 2010.

A reminder: Users cannot upgrade directly from Exchange Server 2010 on-premises to Exchange Server 2019. They will first have to go to Exchange 2013 or 2016, as Microsoft notes in today’s blog post. Microsoft’s first recommendation is to go from Exchange 2010 to Exchange Online/Office 365, unsurprisingly.

Some may be wondering whether Microsoft will also push back the end of support date for Windows 7 — which also is slated to no longer get free security updates after January 14, 2020. I’m 99.999 percent sure that Microsoft will not move the Windows 7 cut-off date, but I’ve asked just to triple check. As previously announced, Microsoft also will be ceasing free support for Windows Server 2008/2008 R2 on January 14, 2020 (unless users agree to move their workloads to Azure).

Recently, Microsoft also pushed back the end of support date for most of its Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) tools. In an effort to consolidate end-of-support dates, Microsoft will no longer issue fixes for the majority of its MDOP tools after April 14, 2026. The original support end dates for those tools varied from January 12, 2021 (for AGPM v4 SP3), to April 14, 2026 for DaRT 10.0. Microsoft is not changing the end of support date for MED-V 2.0, which remains April 13, 2021.