End of free support for some Microsoft products…

This April, 14 marks the end of free support for Windows XP and Office 2003, so in the same way to Windows Server 2003 SP1, “meaning it will no longer provide support for that four-year-old release”.

Microsoft is offering paid, extended support for XP Professional users (who also have Software Assurance licensing contracts) until April 8, 2014. It also will provide paid, extended support for Office 2003 through August 4, 2012.

In case you’re wondering about support deadlines for other Windows and Office products, here is the link.

So according some calculations of Mary Jo Foley, about the support deadlines, the following list is a good start if you’re interested:

Windows 2000: Free support ended June 30, 2005; paid support ends on July 13, 2010. Service Pack 3 was retired on June 30, 2005. No more SPs planned.

Windows XP SP2: Service pack will be retired on July 13, 2010.

Windows XP SP3: Service pack due to be retired two years after SP4 (if there is one) releases or in  April 2014, whichever comes first.

Windows Vista Business: Free support ends on April 10, 2012; paid support ends on April 11, 2017.

Windows Vista SP1: Service pack will be retired two years after the release of SP2 (which is expected in April 2009), so likely in April 2011 (?).

Office 2003 SP3: Service pack will be retired one year after SP4 (if there is one, which is doubtful) is released or in August 2014, whichever comes first.

Office 2007: Free support ends on April 10, 2012; paid support ends on April 11, 2017.

Office 2007 SP1: Service pack will be retired a year after SP2 debuts, so likely in April 2010 (?).

Windows Server 2008: Free support ends September 7, 2013; paid support ends October 7, 2018.

This month also marks the final release for Vista SP2 and Office 2007 SP2.

Among the new features slated for Office 2007 SP2 are previously announced file-format changes — specifically support for Open Document Format (ODF), Microsoft’s own XML Paper Specfication (XPS) and PDF. SP2 also is expected add improvements to Outlook calendaring reliability and improved Outlook performance overall; improvements to Excel’s charting mechanism; the ability for Visio to export UML models to an XML file compliant with the XMI standard; and an uninstall tool for Office client service packs.

Vista SP2 is anticipated to include a new capability for recording data on to Blu-Ray media natively in Windows Vista; the addition of Windows Connect Now for simpler wifi configuration; fixes for DRM issues from WMP upgrades; the Vista Feature Pack for Wireless; functionality for reducing resources required for sidebar gadgets; and more.

So I hope this information extracted of a post of Mary Jo Foley should be interested for you…

Best regards…