Microsoft Deliberately Bricking All Office For Mac 2019/2021 Installations (osnews.com) 121
Microsoft Office 2019 and 2021 for Mac will reportedly drop into "reduced functionality mode" on July 13, 2026, when a license-validation certificate expires, leaving perpetually licensed apps able to open files but not edit or save them. Slashdot reader joshuark shares a report from OSnews: "Microsoft Office 2019 and 2021 for Mac view-only conversion (2026) is a scheduled remote degradation of perpetually-licensed Microsoft Office software for macOS and iOS, set for July 13, 2026 when a license-validation certificate used by the Office apps expires," reports the Consumer Rights Wiki. "After Office 2019 for Mac reached end of support in October 2023, Microsoft assured customers their installed apps would 'continue to function.' The July 13, 2026 conversion instead drops the apps into a Microsoft-defined 'reduced functionality mode,' in which files can be opened and viewed but not edited or saved. By May 30, 2026, the original 2023 end-of-support page had been re-dated and rewritten on Microsoft's site; the 'continue to function' clause was removed."
Microsoft's advice to the users they're stealing from is to keep using the applications as mere viewers, switch to the free Office 365 web applications, pay for a 365 subscription, or buy a brand new regular copy of Office 2024. None of these make any sense, and clearly, all of this should be illegal, but it's not because the software industry is a clown show.
Microsoft's advice to the users they're stealing from is to keep using the applications as mere viewers, switch to the free Office 365 web applications, pay for a 365 subscription, or buy a brand new regular copy of Office 2024. None of these make any sense, and clearly, all of this should be illegal, but it's not because the software industry is a clown show.
Microsoft being Microsoft. (Score:5, Informative)
"I Am Altering the Deal, Pray I Don't Alter It Any Further."
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Art of the deal.
Re:Microsoft being Microsoft. (Score:5, Insightful)
The evil for which we hate Microsoft is also the reason that we all know the name. They won't ever stop being evil because that's exactly how they maintain their wealth and power.
Re:Microsoft being Microsoft. (Score:4, Insightful)
Sounds, then, like someone should strip them of their wealth and power.
As long as "someone" isn't another rich, entitled asshole - then you're going in circles.
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Someone needs to make a serious competitor to the Office suite. None of these half-assed versions that are floating around.
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Or switch to Libre (Score:5, Informative)
Or dump Microsoft and switch to LibreOffice.
Re:Or switch to Libre (Score:5, Informative)
I bailed on Windows and the whole Microsoft ecosystem and went to Linux. It's been working out well.
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Re:Or switch to Libre (Score:5, Interesting)
I did the switch 9 years ago. Never looked back.
I also ditched any MShit for a self-hosted Nextcloud. I am on par with features, and for the price of an MS subscription, I got a fixed IP for hosting all my data at home, accessible from anywhere.
Not a setup for John Doe, but great for the nerd I am.
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Did it, done it, doing it tomorrow.
Abolishing Micro$oft Office from our list of supported products is one of the best moves we've ever made.
Re:Or switch to Libre (Score:5, Informative)
Being that its a mac, Apples Pages and Numbers apps are surprisingly functional software and I havent found many Doc or XLS files it cant open and work with.
Obv not going to be great for folks who use the more powerful features of office. But I *believe* they are free.
And yeah Libreoffice is reasonably functional too, even if it does feel a little arcane at times.
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100%. But that wouldn't stop me from going to the Disputes Tribunal to demand they refund my money as well. :-)
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I'd daresay even Pages is a good alternative in some cases, and it is a free download. I prefer LibreOffice for reliability, because it works everywhere regardless of platform.
Re: Or switch to Libre (Score:2)
Or OnlyOffice. Until recently I had no idea OnlyOffice existed. It's pretty great if you want to break free from MS Office.
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Always the better choice. Flag me redundant.
Re: Or switch to Libre (Score:2)
Get a perpetual licence for LibreOffice. (Score:2)
Got a perpetual licence for LibreOffice.
it's called an MPL licence
Lawsuit in 3... 2... (Score:2)
Sounds like Microsoft wants to get beat up in federal court. Again.
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"Regime"? You speak like the USA is in a dict........
Nevermind.
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It sounds like you don't understand how the court system works. The SCOTUS only hears cases which are brought before it, and then selectively.
Which cases specifically do you feel indicate corruption on the part of the SCOTUS? There are definitely some dissenting decisions which don't adhere to the US constitution, and there is definitely a long running theme in the courts of activist judges re-interpreting well defined language, and perhaps (probably) even a couple judges who are compromised, but I'm not aw
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but Jackson's opinions downright ignore case law
When she quotes 16th century witch trials as justification for overturning 50 years of SCOTUS re-affirmed case law, get back to us. Scalia is far more incompetent and ridiculous.
The Legal System. For Lawyers, By Lawyers. (Score:2)
Sounds like Microsoft wants to get beat up in federal court. Again.
Was it worth it the last time? It likely was, so what should we expect them to do. In 21st Century Capitalism, every shitty/immoral/unethical/illegal action is weight against the punishment first. Not against morals, ethics, or even laws.
Why? Because billions spent lubin, er lobbying lawmakers up makes being shitty worth it. Every fucking time.
The Legal system replaced the Justice system when it became By Lawyers, For Lawyers. Who profit the most from it. Every fucking time.
(Also helps when you're
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Who is going to file the case?
Even more importantly, how?
Acting like Broadcom (Score:4, Insightful)
The nasty Broadcom behaviour is spreading in the industry. Perpetual licenses are not liberty being honoured.
This is disgusting and should be the grounds of be a class action suit.
Re:Acting like Broadcom (Score:4, Insightful)
What we need is a clear duck typing law for digital purchases. If a purchase of a digital product looks like a sale, it is a sale, and there must be no known technological provision that is even capable of preventing its indefinite use. It must be possible to freely transfer it to new machines, to new users, etc. without limitation. Period. It must not be possible for the company to prevent this, either through action (deliberately disabling it) or inaction (failing to renew a certificate, failing to keep activation servers online, etc.).
If you can't do that, you should not be allowed to sell digital products. No grey area.
This means that your licensing servers must be available forever, or else you must not require their use. This means that when you buy a movie, it doesn't matter if the distributor's license for that movie is no longer valid, because you, the customer, bought a license that is perpetual, and it must be honored. And so on.
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Its how most of the western world sees it, and with natural-lifetime warranties for fitness of purpose, Its highly likely that they legally are supposed to refund purchases of these older products if they render them unfit for purpose.
The US are special snowflakes however and seem to have a different way of doing things however. But don't be suriprised of the europeans or australians get diabolical on microsofts ass if they try and impose t
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You only think EU is better. I'll give you an example of an EU product - Porsche Taycan. Porsche recently decided they will no longer honor the warranty on the 22kW on-board-charger. They are replacing them with 11kW chargers (half the performance or speed) and telling customers "nobody needs it that fast" (which is hypocritical too, as they offer this speed upgrade as an option on the new Cayenne EV). There are pissed-off customers who bought the car specifically for the faster charging usecase, even paid more for this option, but Porsche doesn't care, nor is EU going "diabolical" (as you call it) on one of its own companies forcing them to buy back the cars unfit for the purpose they were sold for. Heck, in North America Porsche further downgraded even the 11kW chargers to 9.6kW via an OTA update, to reduce their own warranty costs (use it slower, will break less) - again, no government doing anything about it.
Customers who care should just sue. This is pretty strictly a civil issue, and the government isn't going to bother to intervene. It's up to the customers to force them to reverse that.
That said, 22 kW AC charging is absurd. It requires 32A of three-phase power or 90A of a single phase 240V, which means a three-phase 40A circuit or a single-phase 120A circuit. That's larger than the total capacity of my entire breaker box at my house. In a sane universe, the demand charges alone would be enough to disc
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Mine is staying disconnected from the Internet until PS5 firmware 10.40 is broken (without the need of a rare $500 game disc). My PS4 Pro has been jailbroken for a while and I just torrent all my games.
Not allowed to use words like buy / own / purchase (Score:2)
Not allowed to use words like buy / own / purchase / obtain / pay for / get / etc.
Must clearing state rent or license with an min time stated.
Re:Acting like Broadcom (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'm fine with software released as is but you can't expect software to be perpetually maintained.
Did anyone say anything about perpetual maintenance?
If the software requires a licensing server, that must keep working, or an update be made available that disables that requirement. That was a self-imposed issue on the vendors part. If it's the certs expiration specifically that is the issue, just disable the expiration check.
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an update be made available that disables that requirement.
I've seen this before, on some games I think. It's a good idea when you go EOL to provide this kind of thing, promotes brand value as well.
Class Action Lawsuit in ... 3.... 2 .... (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, come on... This one screams class action. I just got an email link to a list of current class action suits I could click on to see if I qualified, and none of them were over as clear cut a complaint as a company purposely crippling software initially promised to keep working.
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This one screams class action.
Absolutely and the settlement will be a free one-year subscription to Office 365, secured with a credit card. /s
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Class action settlements rarely benefit the class in any meaningful way (and almost never actually correct the problem), and equally rarely discomfort the "defendant".
Your proposed settlement is very plausible (if it actually get to a settlementt).
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If the class action lawyers are at all competent and the primary plaintiffs are not horrible people (bought off), the class action should demand that Microsoft release a hot fix that turns off the relevant validation. It's an hour of coding effort for Microsoft, though it would probably take half a dozen engineers a week or two to spin up a build environment capable of building it. The hassle of being forced to unlock the software would do far more to make them and other companies wary of such shenanigan
Re: Class Action Lawsuit in ... 3.... 2 .... (Score:2)
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I mean, come on... This one screams class action. I just got an email link to a list of current class action suits I could click on to see if I qualified, and none of them were over as clear cut a complaint as a company purposely crippling software initially promised to keep working.
You're right.
And you should get that $7 refund check just in time for the hardware to be deemed past the supported expiry date.
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Re:Class Action Lawsuit in ... 3.... 2 .... (Score:4, Informative)
class action for what? They aren't deliberately bricking it like the article claims, they simply aren't fixing a no longer supported version. A dick move given the version is only 7 years old, but well within the terms of the license purchased.
They deliberately but in a system for verifying that the software is allowed to run, and deliberately used a certificate that has a fixed expiration date. Whether through incompetence or malice, Microsoft deliberately bricked the software. Technically, they did it a decade ago, and it is only just now being revealed that their time bomb is about to go off, but the effect is the same.
It is per se fraudulent dealing/false advertising to sell a perpetual license to software with full knowledge that it will stop working on a specific date.
This is, IMO, an open-and-shut Lanham Act/false advertising case. And any even remotely competent judge should absolutely throw the book at them.
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From the summary...
The July 13, 2026 conversion instead drops the apps into a Microsoft-defined 'reduced functionality mode,' in which files can be opened and viewed but not edited or saved.
So prior to July 13th, you'll be able to edit or save documents. After that, it shifts into viewer mode only. I'd call that deliberating breaking the software.
EU (Score:5, Interesting)
I have a feeling this won't fly in the EU.
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I have a feeling this won't fly in the EU.
I have a feeling it will. Microsoft isn't pulling the plug as much as not supporting a certificate renewal for something they indicated would reach end of a support period. It's precisely this kind of particular bullshit that legal wrangling rests on and which makes lawyers rich. The EU has enough of a problem with the "killing software" trend and they've done nothing in the meantime.
And even if it doesn't fly in the EU, the EU is a slow moving bureaucracy. They do not (and cannot) act on intent alone. They
No. Bullshit. (Score:3)
End of support for perpetually licensed software is expected to function for perpetuity. This is 5 year old perpetual software being bricked. This certificate nonsense is willful and artificial expiration. If the software can read a file without a certificate, it can certainly write a file without a certificate.
This problem with certificate dependencies in software and hardware is going to very conveniently get a lot worse as certificate lifetimes are shortened into absurdity. Currently 200 days and droppin
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I agree with you in principle. As I said the outcome of this will rest on legal arguments and edge cases. The certificate being nonsense in your eyes may be justified by lawyers and agreed by judges leaving us fucked over. This is no where near as clear cut as you make it out to be. EU law is often quite vague in such cases.
But either way, even if it does work out in our favour, don't expect it in the next couple of years.
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As in, MS will not disable the software (in the EU)? Or as in, the EU won't let them? Or as in, the EU will sue them?
Or as in (as usual), none of the above.
Are they slighting Office or Mac users? (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft Deliberately Bricking All Office For Mac 2019/2021 Installations
And here my Office 2010 suite on Windows 10 is chugging along just fine -- when I'm not using LibreOffice on Linux Mint ...
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Ya know, that's a good point. Some lawyers should take note. It may add some anti-competition / monopoly type of violations.
More specifically, do Office 2019 and Office 2021 for Windows also continue to work? (AFAICT from Wikipedia, they do)
Sure seems self serving.
LibreOffice (Score:5, Funny)
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Why is this moderated Funny?
Version 24.2.7.2 AARCH64 runs just fine on my Mac laptop and the X86-64 version runs equally fine on my Linux box.
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Because there are some edge cases where Calc wont satisfy the end-user.
I think this issue will be going away within 5 years now that the US is well on its way to become a pariah state like Russia.
If LibreOffice won't cut it, the new Euro-Office (https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/Euro-Office/ [wikipedia.org]) will have to... by LAW!
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Yep, same as the person that must buy a F350 because they pulled a trail once in their life. Gotta cover that edge case. Enjoy the abuse!
Zero Wing said it best ... (Score:4, Informative)
So let me understand (Score:2)
Re:So let me understand (Score:4, Informative)
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Wonder if the AI could generate a new certificate?
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The other option is to remove the requirement altogether, so the software no longer requires any sort of activation.
So much for the perpetual licenses sold on BoingBo (Score:3)
Second FU from Microsoft this week. I'm not going to pay for an office365 subscription any more than the Copilot subscription I cancelled yesterday.
Class-action lawsuit incoming... (Score:2)
If the product was sold with a perpetual license, then this is simply breach of contract and I foresee a class-action lawsuit.
Cool... (Score:5, Interesting)
Collect the money and move to something better.
will the apple app store force refunds? or force M (Score:2)
will the apple app store force refunds? or force MS to fix this?
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they have a presence here in NZ, so they are legally liable to pay.
Our consumer laws are "by the people, for the people" , so we actually have a LOT of power to fight back.
A products warranty is more or less irrelevant , I got may sons 3 1/2 year Mac laptop fixed with a new motherboard for free because of it.
and this do not cost more here or what ever other boogyman claim is made. If they choose not to sell here, someone else will.
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The CGA does not apply to businesses, only "consumers", but it's a very powerful tool for consumer rights.
I helped get a person get all the parts for a Harley engine, he bought it from a person who had just had the motor overhauled from a 3rd party however the did not clean the sump so metal flings wrecked the motor . He got all the parts to fix it, he chose to do the labour because he trusted his work, not theirs. The CGA does not matter if y
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Be sure every Kiwi in this situation sticks it to 'em.
Yeah, a refund will really stick it to them! LOL
Don't get me wrong - that's a nice start and great to have built into the law, but it's not going to hurt them at all. 100% of perpetual license owners could demand and get a refund, and they'd still be handing you back less value than you originally paid (IE: deflation). And if you do get your money back, do you have any standing for future actions?
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they'd still be handing you back less value than you originally paid (IE: deflation).
Deflation of your purchase power value is pretty cheap to pay for a product - typically you'd pay 20-33% of RRP annually in subscription pricing or maintenance, so 3-5% annually is quite cheap in comparison.
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they'd still be handing you back less value than you originally paid (IE: deflation).
Deflation of your purchase power value is pretty cheap to pay for a product - typically you'd pay 20-33% of RRP annually in subscription pricing or maintenance, so 3-5% annually is quite cheap in comparison.
From the user perspective, sure, but this was in response to, "Be sure every Kiwi in this situation sticks it to 'em" ... by getting a refund. It's nice that they'll probably get a refund, but it'll do nothing to prevent MS from doing this again.
Also, it's not that great for users either. That might soften the blow, but they bought a perpetual license, not a cheap rental, and now they'll have to move to something else on short notice.
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maybe one of the few times you want apple to have (Score:2)
maybe one of the few times you want apple to have hard app store rules!
Libreoffice is/has been/always will be free. (Score:2)
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Why not both?
For accuracy (Score:5, Informative)
While Office 2021 is affected by the expiring license, it's still under support until Oct 2026 and users just need to update. It only reverts to read-only if you don't update.
The issue is specific to the licensing server cert. The problem cannot be fixed without an update. They aren't actively breaking functionality. They just decided to not provide an update for Office 2019 because it's end of life.
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Yeah, this is a terribly inaccurate article. You have to run a version of macOS that is supported to get the latest version of Office that is still supported. Unsupported versions are unsupported, sure, but the licensing cert really shouldn't be considered an update - they have no problems activating Windows XP with or without a licensing server.
A certificate in a certificate store is an "update" but it's not like it's an actual software update if they're doing it right. It kind of violates the very idea
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Thank you. I had been wondering about this precisely because Office 2021 is still receiving updates.
So this is really only an Office 2019 issue. Which still isn't great, but it is at least older.
And from the sounds of things, this only impacts the retail-licensed version of Office 2019. The volume licensed LTSC version doesn't rely on
I'm still using Office 2011 on my Mac ... (Score:2)
... you insensitive clod!
And it works just as good, if not better, than the fully up-to-date Office 365 on my work Mac.
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Office 2011 requires an Intel Mac, but will work on the 32 bit Core (no 2) Duos.
Still using Office 2019 on Win10. (Score:2)
Not sure if the windows version will have the same issue. But I have a bought and paid-for copy of office 2019. On a newer laptop I installed LibreOffice. My main worry is Word formatting errors or differences that LibreOffice can make that you don't know about until you open them in MS office. It becomes less of an issue as time goes on, as mostly these days I make Word Files that get turned into PDFs before anyone sees them.
I've had great luck not subscribing to any software as a service except Ad
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The internet detects bricking as damage ... (Score:2)
Microsoft® Word for Mac
Version 16.108.2 (26042616)
License: Office LTSC Standard for Mac 2024
© 2026 Microsoft. All rights reserved.
I torrented Office LTSC 2024 from tpb or nnm-club sometime ago. To be sure no more auto updates happen, I compressed and removed
Try Libreoffice - Free as in Free Beer! (Score:2)
You knew what she was (Score:2)
when you married her.
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Exactly. If you use Microsoft software you should expect all of the shenanigans they come up with. Obviously you must think them acceptable to continue using their software. My prime advice to users is - you cannot trust Microsoft software at all so maintain your data with that in mind.
Block the auto updater then (Score:3)
Office works offline perfectly fine so there should be a way to block it.
Or maybe Mythos can be convinced that this is a bug and point out how to fix it.
This (Score:3)
This is one of many reasons why the Pirate Bay and others exist to this day. Next time go FOSS if you can.
What's after "too big to care" (Score:2)
Buy another product that Microsoft will brick in 6 years: This shows how much contempt Microsoft has for its customers. Microsoft has been "too big to care" for a few decades but now that vendor lock-in on the desktop form-factor is increasing, Microsoft can monetize (Office 365) or pirate (OneDrive, Recall, Co-pilot, Scout) eve
Wait and see. (Score:2)
Inundated from the vitriol online, I can't see an official statement from Microsoft in this. Were I a betting man, and I had one chip to stake, I would put it on this being patched.
Too many reasons to patch, and too few not to. Start with the jurisdictions where this would be legally problematic.
I'll wait for the deadline to come and go, and look for the angry post-bricking outcries.
You Don't Own It (Score:2)
Even though you bought it, you don't own it. Even though you bought a "perpetual license" you can't use it. It's the brave new world of software and it's standard practice for Microsoft. After you've used it for a while, they just make it disappear and you can't do anything about it. Are you ready to switch to Linux yet, or do things need to get even worse?
I'm actually gonna try and defend Microsoft here! (Score:2)
Don't get me wrong I think what Microsoft is doing is bad and fucking over their customers, but I have a strange feeling the certificate changeover is actually the result of an Apple policy, like I can see in this thread that people are still running ancient versions of Office 2011, and probably on ancient versions of Mac OS, but modern Mac OS is a bit of a security pig and you have to appease the
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Office 2019 is available for Apple Silicon though. That's not the issue in question. The issue is that the "license" is tied to a certificate with a relatively short expiration date (the one mentioned next month) and Microsoft's refusal to issue an updated cert.
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I have nothing Microsoft at home.
Yeah, sure, I'm an IT geek, but it's probably the first time that's happened since I first used a DOS disk back in the day (as before that all my computers weren't PCs at all but small home computers).
Windows 11 literally forced me off Windows at home, I haven't run Office at home in decades, and I now need to be paid to manage Microsoft systems of any kind.
Microsoft told me that Windows 10 would be the last version of Windows. And you know what? In my case, they were righ