MICROSOFT SUPPORT LIFECYCLE BLOG

Upcoming Support Transitions for Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003

The past couple of months have been very busy for the Support Lifecycle team…  Unfortunately, due to other commitments, I haven’t had an opportunity to post to the blog in quite some time.  It’s been great to receive the friendly prodding for a new post from folks who had previously been regular readers of the blog.   I’ll do my best to get back to a regular posting rhythm over the next couple of weeks.  I’ve also invited other members of the Support Lifecycle team to join-in and occasionally post.  This should help ensure that we keep a regular posting cadence.  Thanks to everyone for their continued interest and all of the reminders!

In today’s post, I want to highlight important upcoming support transitions for Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Professional, and Windows Server 2003. 

All editions of Windows 2000 Server and Windows 2000 Professional will reach the end of the Extended Support phase on July 13, 2010.  After this date, Windows 2000 will no longer be publicly supported.  This means that Microsoft will no longer provide any assisted support and will no longer provide security updates for this product.  Self-Help Online Support (including the knowledge base and other articles on http://support.microsoft.com) will continue to be available for a minimum of 12 months after this date.

This means that customers only have another 1.5 years to complete their migrations away from Windows 2000.  If you haven’t already started to plan your migrations, I’d recommend considering this fairly soon.  You don’t want to get caught in a situation where you’re still running Windows 2000 for a critical application and not be eligible for any type of support.

Additionally, all editions of Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2003 R2 will transition from the Mainstream Support phase to the Extended Support phase on July 13, 2010.  These products will continue to be publicly supported in the Extended Support phase through July 14, 2015.  Please keep in mind that customers without Software Assurance, who wish to enroll for Extended Hotfix Support, must do so within 90 days of the end of Mainstream Support. 

This is probably also a good time to remind everyone that Windows XP is also transitioning to the Extended Support phase on April 14, 2009.

Each of these support transitions are follow the Support Lifecycle policy and have previously been announced.  In most cases, I hope this information doesn't come as a surprise.

Next time, I’ll explain a little more about our Extended Hotfix Support program for DST.  If you have any other topic suggestions, or any general policy questions that you’d like addressed on the blog, please let us know!

*This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.*

Windows XP SP3 released! What does that mean for the Support Lifecycle of XP?

Many of you probably saw last week’s announcement regarding the release of Windows XP Service Pack 3.  This release has prompted a number of questions from customers regarding the impact it has to the Support Lifecycle for Windows XP.   So, let me try to explain…

You may recall from previous postings that support for Business & Developer products is provided for a minimum of 10 years (5 years in the Mainstream Support phase phase and 5 years in the Extended Support phase).  These dates may be extended, if a follow-on product release is delayed.  This rule only applies for new product versions and not to new service packs.  The release of a new service pack does not impact the Support Lifecycle of the product.

However, a new service pack release does impact the end of support for the previous service pack.  In the service pack policy posting, we discussed how support for a previous service pack will either be 12 or 24 months from the release of a new service pack version.

So, with the release of XP SP3, we begin the end of support clock for XP SP2.  Since the Windows product family provides 24 months of support for the previous service pack, this would mean that XP SP2 will end 24 months following the release of SP3.  Windows XP Service Pack 2 will end on July 13, 2010.  These support dates can be found on the Support Lifecycle website.

*This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.*

What’s happening to Windows XP on June 30th?

I want to take another break from the discussion of the overall Support Lifecycle policies to address some common confusion that we’ve been hearing regarding the support dates for Windows XP.  Recently, there have been a number of posts in the blogosphere about Windows XP and the upcoming end of Direct OEM and Retail License availability.  Some people are interpreting this as the end of support for Windows XP.

Please let me try and clear this up…  Support for Windows XP will continue, in accordance with the Microsoft Support Lifecycle policy.  This means that the Mainstream Support phase will end on April 14, 2009 and the Extended Support phase will end on April 8, 2014.  That’s at least another 6 years of support remaining for Windows XP!

Remember, that Windows XP was launched in 2001 and Microsoft committed to providing a minimum of 10 years of support (5 years of Mainstream Support and 5 years of Extended Support) at the time it was released.  In accordance with the policy, when we announced the updated release date of Windows Vista, Microsoft also provided additional 2 years Mainstream Support for Windows XP.  Last year, we also announced the addition of an Extended Support phase to the consumer editions of Windows XP.  Supporting products for this length of time is not something that is typical in the software industry.  This is a significant advantage for Microsoft customers, because it allows for future business planning and allows our customers to maximize their investment in Microsoft technologies by understanding how to achieve the most productive use of the product.

So, what is really changing on June 30th?  To understand this, I would recommend reading the Windows Lifecycle Policy page and the official Support Lifecycle pages for Windows XP.  Essentially, this means that OEMs and Retailers will not be able to obtain new copies of Windows XP.  That’s it.  System Builders will continue to be able to obtain XP through January 31st, 2009. 

There is still plenty of support left for Windows XP.  If you read any stories that say otherwise, don't believe them.  :) 

Have you seen any posts that don't tell the full story about Windows XP support?  What has been your experience with understanding the Windows XP Support Lifecycle policy?  What are your thoughts on the length of support for Windows XP?  Please leave us some comments and tell us about it!

*This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.*

End of Support for Visual Basic 6.0

I wanted to take a moment to remind everyone that public support for Visual Basic 6 came to an end on April 8th, 2008.  If you already subscribe to our quarterly newsletter you probably already know the details behind this.  If not, here is a quick explanation of what’s happening on the second Tuesday of April…

Visual Basic 6 (VB6) can basically be divided into three main deliverables…

• Visual Basic 6 IDE -- the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) used to develop VB 6.0 applications
• Visual Basic 6 Runtime -- the base libraries and execution engine used to run VB 6.0 applications
• Visual Basic 6 Runtime Extended Files -- select ActiveX control OCX files, libraries, and tools shipping with the IDE media and as an online release
  

Support for the VB6 IDE came to an end on April 8th.  This means that Microsoft will no longer provide any additional assisted support, security updates or development assistance on the IDE or the VB6 language.  However, online information (such as MSDN articles and the Knowledge Base) will remain online for at least the next 12 months.

Support for the VB6 Runtime will continue.  Generally, the VB6 Runtime is shipped as a component of the operating system and will be supported with the product that it shipped with.  For example, since the VB6 Runtime shipped as a component of Windows XP, the runtime will continue to be supported for the life of Windows XP.  The VB6 Runtime has shipped on all of our OS releases and will continue to be supported with all those OSes.

Since the VB6 Runtime is supported with the OS, customers will be able to open support cases and request assistance if the VB6 Runtime is not operating as expected or is causing problems with their application.  In addition, we will continue to provide security updates for the VB6 runtime.  We will not provide any development assistance or support for the IDE, however.

The VB6 Runtime Extended Files are generally installed by the IDE or from Microsoft.com and are redistributed by developers with their application.  This redistribution is often required to ensure the functionality of the application.  The product team will be releasing a new, supported set of these tools online in the coming weeks.  To obtain support, customers will need to ensure they are running the supported versions of these files.

More information on how the Visual Basic 6 runtime will be supported can be found in the MSDN Visual Basic 6 Resource Center.  On this site, the product team has detailed a number of the support scenarios and files, especially as they pertain to Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.   It’s a great resource if you have any outstanding questions.

*This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.*

What is Extended Hotfix Support?

As I mentioned in an earlier posting, during the Extended Support phase we no longer provide non-security hotfixes without enrollment in the Extended Hotfix Support program.  Simply put, the Extended Hotfix Support program provides the ability to request non-security hotfixes for products that are in the Extended Support phase. 

Remember, Extended Hotfix Support (EHS) only provides the opportunity to request a non-security hotfix for a new bug discovered during the Extended Support phase.  It has no impact on a customer’s ability to request support, security updates, or other non-security hotfixes created during the Mainstream Support phase.

To enroll in EHS, customers must already have Premier Support.  In addition, enrollment in the program must occur within the first 90 days of the product entering the Extended Support phase.  If the customer misses this deadline, there may not be an opportunity to enroll in EHS again. 

The only exception to the 90 day enrollment rule is for customers with Software Assurance (SA).  Customers with Software Assurance on select products are eligible for a benefit which includes the program fee for Extended Hotfix Support and allows enrollment at any time.  Essentially, this means that the SA customers only need to sign the appropriate paperwork and pay the per hotfix fee.  The products that are included in this benefit are: Microsoft Office Professional, Microsoft Windows Client, Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM), Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS), and Microsoft Windows Server.

Pricing for Extended Hotfix Support consists of an annual program fee, plus an additional fee for each non-security hotfix they receive.  Non-security hotfixes produced during the Extended Support phase will not be made available to other customers in the program, without enrollment in EHS or the per hotfix fee.  This is to ensure that all customers are treated equal and are being charged the same fees for each hotfix.

Whew…  That’s a lot of stuff to cover.  I hope it makes the program easier to understand, though.  :)

*This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.*

Why do we end support on the second Tuesday at the end of a quarter?

Until January 2006, support for products used to expire on the anniversary date of their general availability.  This meant that if a product was released on December 1, then it would also expire on December 1st - 5 or 10 years later.  We received a lot of feedback from customers that this was not only inconsistent and hard to track, but also very hard to manage.  In some cases, we might have 6 or 7 products all expiring on different days in the same month!

In January 2006, we announced a modification to the product expiration policy to address this issue.  Now, all product expiration dates are rounded forward to expire on the second Tuesday after the end of the quarter.  This means that if we previously had multiple products that would expire in December, with the new policy the new expiration dates would be rounded forward to the second Tuesday in January -- all expiring on the same day.  Under this policy, products would only expire four times a year.  This is much more predictable for customers and helps ease the management burden of tracking product expiration dates.

You may notice that this timeline also coincides with the second Tuesday security update release cycle.  In the event Microsoft releases a security update on the same day that a product is scheduled to end its support lifecycle, support of the security update will continue for a minimum of 30 days.

We’ve received a lot of positive feedback on this change, since it helps makes the product expiration dates easier to understand and manage.  What do you think?  Does it make it make product expiration more predictable in your environment?

*This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.*

What’s up with Service Pack support?

The Service Pack Support policy is sometimes misunderstood by our customers.  As I mentioned on some of the previous postings, support in the Mainstream Support and Extended Support phases is only provided at the supported service pack level.  This means that you must be running a supported service pack to continue to receive security updates or be eligible for any of our other support options (such as Premier, Pro or Pay Per Incident cases).

When a new service pack is released, Microsoft will provide either 12 or 24 months of support for the previous service pack, varying by product family.  We no longer make the decision of 12 or 24 months of support for each individual service pack release.  Instead, this decision is made at the product family level (for example, Windows, Office, Servers, or Developer tools) and will be consistent across a product’s service pack releases.

Of course, when support for a product ends, support for the product’s service packs will also end.  The product’s Support Lifecycle supersedes the Service Pack Support policy, to ensure that we don’t provide support for a service pack when the parent product is no longer supported.

Let’s try an example...  When Windows XP SP2 was released in September 2004, it started the end of support clock for Windows XP SP1.  For the Windows product family, we provide 24 months of support for the previous service pack.  Therefore, support for Windows XP SP1 ended 24 months following the release of SP2 -- on October 10, 2006.  When Windows XP SP3 is released, it will begin the end of support clock for SP2 -- ending 24 months following the release of SP3.

Here's another example, this time using Office 2003.  When Office 2003 SP3 was released in September 2007, it started the end of support clock for Office 2003 SP2.  Since the Office family provides 12 months of support for the previous service pack, support for Office 2003 SP2 will end on October 14, 2008.  Support for Office 2003 SP3 will continue until 12 months following the release of SP4 or support for the product ends.

You may notice that we don't end support for products or service packs on the same date they were released.  Instead, we round the end dates to the second Tuesday after the end of the quarter.  We'll discuss this in a future posting.

In the meantime, please tell us what you think!  Does this better explain the Service Pack Support policy?  What can we do better to explain this on our main site?

*This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.*

An explanation of the Extended Support phase for Business & Developer products

Extended Support is the second phase of the Support Lifecycle for Business & Developer products.  The key differences between the Mainstream Support phase and Extended Support phase are that the “no-charge” support options are no longer available and that we no longer provide new non-security hotfixes.  This means that customers will need to open paid support cases (such as Premier, Pro or Pay Per Incident cases) to obtain support for their product.  For those customers who require new non-security hotfixes during the Extended Support phase, a special program called Extended Hotfix Support (EHS) is available.  I’ll save the detailed discussion about EHS for another posting.

One of the important things to note is that Extended Support is still a publicly supported phase.  Many Premier and Pro customers who already open paid cases with Microsoft will notice little difference in the support that is provided in this phase.  They will continue to be able to open paid cases, receive security updates, obtain support assistance from their Technical Account Manager, etc…  In reality, few customers need Extended Hotfix Support unless they have a history of requesting or requiring non-security hotfixes.

Like the Mainstream Support phase, it is important to note that support is only provided at a supported service pack level.

The Extended Support phase is provided for a minimum of 5 years or 2 years after the second successor product is released, whichever is longer.  This means that the Extended Support phase may be extended to longer than 5 years, if the second follow-on product release is delayed.   The basic reasoning behind this policy is that we don’t want to completely end support for a product unless there are 2 newer versions of the product for customers to migrate to.

At the end of the Extended Support phase, Business & Developer products are no longer publicly supported.  This means that there is no more paid support, no support assistance and no further security updates.  Customers are highly encouraged to move a supported product as soon as possible.

Please tell us what you think!  Does this better explain the Extended Support phase?  What can we do better to explain this on our main site?

*This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.*

An explanation of the Mainstream Support phase

I’d like to write a little about the Mainstream Support phase.  I think Mainstream Support is probably the best understood phase, but I want to ensure that we discuss this foundational piece before getting into some of the specific policies and offerings.

For all products, the Microsoft Support Lifecycle policy begins with the Mainstream Support phase.  In this phase, we are able to provide all of the standard support services that Microsoft offers.  For example, in-the-box support, paid incident support, design change requests, non-security hotfixes, security updates and online self-help support may all be available during the Mainstream Support phase.

Consumer products that are released annually are provided a total of 3 years of Mainstream Support.  Some examples of these are Microsoft Money, Encarta, Streets & Trips, etc.

For the rest of Consumer, Hardware and Business & Developer products, the Mainstream Support phase is provided for a minimum of 5 years or 2 years after the successor product is released, whichever is longer.  This means that the Mainstream Support phase may be extended to longer than 5 years, if the follow-on product release is delayed.  A good example of this might be Windows XP.  With the updated release date of Windows Vista, Microsoft provided additional Mainstream Support for Windows XP.  Mainstream Support for Windows XP will now end approximately 2 years following the release of Windows Vista.  The basic reasoning behind this policy is that we don’t want to move a product into Extended Support if there is no newer product to migrate to. 

One other important thing to note is that support is only provided at a supported service pack level.  We’ll discuss more about this policy in a future posting.

At the end of the Mainstream Support phase, support for Consumer products comes to an end.  Business & Developer products, on the other hand, are provided a minimum of another 5 years of support in the Extended Support phase.

Next time, we’ll talk about the Extended Support phase.  Please feel free to leave questions or suggestions or future postings!

*This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.*

History of the Microsoft Support Lifecycle policy

I wanted to start off the blog with a posting about the history of the Microsoft Support Lifecycle policy.  We often get questions about the history of the policy, how it came about and how long it’s actually been in place.

Prior to 2002, Microsoft did not have a centralized team or set of policies to govern the length of support provided for each product or the level of service provided throughout a product’s supported life.  Instead, each of the product groups (PGs) was independently responsible for defining the length and terms of support for their individual products.  The PGs managed their own support groups, published information regarding their support policies and communicated directly with the customers regarding the supportability of their products. 

While this allowed the PGs significant flexibility to support their products according to their business needs, the situation was not ideal for Microsoft customers.  Customers often complained that it was difficult to understand how long products were supported and that there was little consistency in the support levels, communication approaches and support availability between PGs.  The approach to these policies often differed between the PGs and sometimes even differed between products within the same PG.  In addition, these inconsistencies made it difficult for customers to plan their information technology IT upgrade cycles and future product purchases.

By the beginning of 2001 the majority of the PGs had committed to providing support for both the current version and the previous version of their product.  Unfortunately, the length of support and services provided still differed between most products.  In addition, there were inconsistent requirements for the application of product service packs.   Some PGs always required a products current service pack to be applied, while other PGs had a more liberal policy regarding service pack support.

As a result of continued customer feedback, Microsoft Services chartered a team with the responsibility of creating a unified set of support policies that could be applied all Microsoft products.  The goal was to create a comprehensive support policy that customers could easily understand, reference and plan for.  As a result, in October 2002 Microsoft unveiled the first version of the Microsoft Support Lifecycle.  This original version of the policy provided 5 years of Mainstream Support for Consumer products and 5 years of Mainstream Support and 2 years of Extended Support for Business & Developer products. 

In 2004, Microsoft announced a major revision to the Microsoft Support Lifecycle.  Among the changes announced were expanded lengths of support for Microsoft’s Business & Developer products, clarifications on some of the existing policies, and additional support options for customers who needed support for products that were no longer publicly supported.  While there have been some clarifications and minor changes over the years, this is still the same policy that we use today. 

Next time, I’d like to get into more details about some of the specific policies and perhaps clear-up some common confusion and misconceptions.  In the meantime, please feel free to ask any questions or leave ideas for future postings.

*This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.*

Welcome to the new Support Lifecycle blog!

Welcome to the new home of the Microsoft Support Lifecycle blog.  For those of you who are not familiar, the Microsoft Support Lifecycle is the set of policies that governs the length of support for all Microsoft products.  Or, as described by our website, "provides consistent and predictable guidelines for product support availability when a product releases and throughout that product’s life".  The goal of this blog is not to replace the main http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle website as the authoritative source for information on the policy.  Instead, our goal is to use this blog as an informal communication mechanism to supplement the site and answer some of the common questions we receive.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by!

*This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.*