Microsoft Fully Drops Support for Office for Mac 2011

[n-evo]

Actually some of this computers are so old enough that hackers don’t care anymore. When was the last time you heard in the news an old computer being hacked. Besides it’s Windows it doesn’t matter if it’s new they’re always a target.

That's nonsense. The age of the hardware is largely irrelevant, it's about the software those computers are running and the data that's on them. By default PC's running out of date Windows versions are the easiest targets because they tend to have more known open exploits. There are so many companies, transit hubs and even governments around the world that use old computers with out-of-date software. They make very attractive targets. Why wouldn't they?

 

[kingtj]

Except historically, this hasn't really come to fruition. The hackers putting in the effort to write malware and trojans usually have little interest in trying to find an unpatched vulnerability in old software or operating systems that have long gone out of support. The returns for their work are just too little, with such a small percentage of people still running them.

You have to figure, when something has been on the market with security patches still coming out for it for 6 or 7 years straight, it's a fairly secure product by the end of all of that.

The negligence comes in, IMO, more in lost productivity and lack of compatibility with other people your employees need to interact with online. At some point, it doesn't make sense to try to save a few bucks by not buying the current version of business software your people are paid multiple tens of thousands of dollars per person, per year to use. Look how many headaches it causes just from people emailing newer versions of Word or Excel documents that you can't open if you're still on an older version?

But that's negligent of them as corporations (and government agencies) since those outdated software are exactly the optimal targets for hackers, malware, trojans, etc. — especially now that MS will no longer update or issue security patches.

 

[Remadepreacher]

Except historically, this hasn't really come to fruition. The hackers putting in the effort to write malware and trojans usually have little interest in trying to find an unpatched vulnerability in old software or operating systems that have long gone out of support. The returns for their work are just too little, with such a small percentage of people still running them.

You have to figure, when something has been on the market with security patches still coming out for it for 6 or 7 years straight, it's a fairly secure product by the end of all of that.

The negligence comes in, IMO, more in lost productivity and lack of compatibility with other people your employees need to interact with online. At some point, it doesn't make sense to try to save a few bucks by not buying the current version of business software your people are paid multiple tens of thousands of dollars per person, per year to use. Look how many headaches it causes just from people emailing newer versions of Word or Excel documents that you can't open if you're still on an older version?

I had enormous trouble with corruption and weird behavior in Word for mac 2016. I wasn't using Pages because Apple had dropped facing pages (at the time). I spent months fighting it while producing a book — could never get rid of it all. The trouble started with track changes coming from a PC. So I retyped, did a clean install of the new operating system, and new Office. Result — all the old troubles were gone but I had five new ones, including odd page breaks that would switch to even and page numbers that moved around in the footer and disappeared on some pages in the print program. Unbelievable! I swore off Word.
I had trouble downloading Pages for a couple of days, server down. So I tried to download an old copy of 2011. It set up but won't actually open on Mojave. I was able to get it to work on my wife's Macbook that was using High Sierra. Got nothing to do with 64 bit, both Macbook pros have had that since I bought them in 2013.
I was finally able to get Pages operating. I'd still like Powerpoint to work to check against Keynote. I often have to use other peoples equipment and they have a tendency to not look the same.
BTW, I tried Office 365 and cancelled the subscription when I discovered Word for Mac 2016 in 365 was missing some features important for me in the books production. Microsoft calls them both Word for Mac 2016 but they are not the same.

 

[kingtj]

That's interesting, and I can believe it. We use O365 for both Mac and Windows where I work now, and we've definitely had a lot of headaches where the Mac version simply lacks functionality found in the Windows counterpart of the Office apps. They keep slowly creeping towards improvement on the Mac side. But some of the things that are non-functional just make you shake your head, considering how long they've had to address them already.

For example? Right now, we're struggling with the issue that when you have a "shared mailbox" set up on Office 365 hosted Exchange, you can grant a user permission to read it, and it automatically connects up in Outlook for Windows. On a Mac, it doesn't. You have to walk the user through steps to manually connect up to it.

I had enormous trouble with corruption and weird behavior in Word for mac 2016. I wasn't using Pages because Apple had dropped facing pages (at the time). I spent months fighting it while producing a book — could never get rid of it all. The trouble started with track changes coming from a PC. So I retyped, did a clean install of the new operating system, and new Office. Result — all the old troubles were gone but I had five new ones, including odd page breaks that would switch to even and page numbers that moved around in the footer and disappeared on some pages in the print program. Unbelievable! I swore off Word.
I had trouble downloading Pages for a couple of days, server down. So I tried to download an old copy of 2011. It set up but won't actually open on Mojave. I was able to get it to work on my wife's Macbook that was using High Sierra. Got nothing to do with 64 bit, both Macbook pros have had that since I bought them in 2013.
I was finally able to get Pages operating. I'd still like Powerpoint to work to check against Keynote. I often have to use other peoples equipment and they have a tendency to not look the same.
BTW, I tried Office 365 and cancelled the subscription when I discovered Word for Mac 2016 in 365 was missing some features important for me in the books production. Microsoft calls them both Word for Mac 2016 but they are not the same.

 

[chucker23n1]

You have to figure, when something has been on the market with security patches still coming out for it for 6 or 7 years straight, it's a fairly secure product by the end of all of that.

That’s really not how it works, though. It’s not like each major release gets written from scratch.

 

[kingtj]

That’s really not how it works, though. It’s not like each major release gets written from scratch.

Not from scratch, but they tend to change enough so they introduce a whole slew of new vulnerabilities that come with the new features or bundled utilities and applications.

 

[chucker23n1]

Not from scratch, but they tend to change enough so they introduce a whole slew of new vulnerabilities that come with the new features or bundled utilities and applications.

Sure, significant upgrades introduce new bugs and potentially new security issues.

They can also add protection, though, like a macro-free mode.

 

[serpico007]

I was surprised to be able to download an older version of Office as a subscriber. I expected Microsoft to just say so sorry, too bad.

 

[loby]

I was surprised to be able to download an older version of Office as a subscriber. I expected Microsoft to just say so sorry, too bad.

I was a Microsoft heavy user, including professionally (even worked on being an "Architect" (if anyone can remember that). For 20 years, my tech world was all about Microsoft with little or no consideration for Apple and their products. Then during the Vista era I had enough and crossed over to the Apple world. Still happy I did...

But...Microsoft has learned much from those days and has up their game. Microsoft is getting confident that their platform is better now and are trying (and successfully) pulling people from the Apple OS over to Windows and Office (including their increasing offerings for business). They continue to allow older versions of their software to still work and be downloaded (and activated) in order to open the option to explore their other options. Good business move and is working.

All that said, Microsoft is saying instead of "sorry, too bad", they have learned and chanced their stance to: "ok, go ahead..but look at the better options now..". It's working... 🙁

Apple should learn from this and up their game. Pages, Numbers and especially Keynote is awesome...but underdeveloped now..simple to use "yes" but you can make it more complex with comparable functions and yet keep it simple to use (as was the Apple model from the beginning).

But Apple still does not see the opportunity to again have a complete user experience (all ecosystem) any longer. Not a need in their book right now...$

 

[jblagden]

I was a Microsoft heavy user, including professionally (even worked on being an "Architect" (if anyone can remember that). For 20 years, my tech world was all about Microsoft with little or no consideration for Apple and their products. Then during the Vista era I had enough and crossed over to the Apple world. Still happy I did...

But...Microsoft has learned much from those days and has up their game. Microsoft is getting confident that their platform is better now and are trying (and successfully) pulling people from the Apple OS over to Windows and Office (including their increasing offerings for business). They continue to allow older versions of their software to still work and be downloaded (and activated) in order to open the option to explore their other options. Good business move and is working.

All that said, Microsoft is saying instead of "sorry, too bad", they have learned and chanced their stance to: "ok, go ahead..but look at the better options now..". It's working... 🙁

Apple should learn from this and up their game. Pages, Numbers and especially Keynote is awesome...but underdeveloped now..simple to use "yes" but you can make it more complex with comparable functions and yet keep it simple to use (as was the Apple model from the beginning).

But Apple still does not see the opportunity to again have a complete user experience (all ecosystem) any longer. Not a need in their book right now...$

It would also be greatly appreciated if Apple improved compatibility either by: A) Switching to MS Office or ODF format, B) Providing a means of easily and quickly converting whole folders of iWork files, or C) Included a button for simultaneously saving iWork and MS Office versions of the same file. Apple might have some nice office suite, but in their hubris, they tend to forget that much of the world uses their competitor's far more capable suite. I'm not defending Microsoft - don't get me wrong, they've still got stability issues and legacy cruft to clear out - but since it's a money-maker for them and a big one at that, they focus on making it as functional as possible. They also don't hide important features in endless menus - form has its place, but somtimes it just needs to take a backseat. If Apple really wants to maintain that sort of interface, they really should have a few different menu bar options for different types of tasks.

 

[serpico007]

I'm happy that I can have an option while still on 10.11.6 on this Mac Pro 3,1. I won't use it that often, but good to have in a Windows environment at work to transfer documents.