What does Microsoft retire on October 13, 2026?

Seven distinct lifecycle events land on the same instant. Office LTSC 2021, Project LTSC 2021 and Visio LTSC 2021 reach their Mainstream End Date with no Extended phase behind them. Office LTSC 2021 for Mac reaches both its mainstream and its extended end date on the same day. The Office 2021 perpetual family reaches its Retirement Date under Modern Policy. Skype for Business LTSC 2021 — the client — ends. Year 3 of Extended Security Updates for Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2 ends. Windows 10 Enterprise 2016 LTSB reaches its Extended End Date. Dynamics 365 Business Central on-premises 2025 Release Wave 1 (v26.x) reaches End of Servicing. Separately and importantly, Windows Server 2022 leaves Mainstream Support on the same day but stays in Extended Support until 2031 — that one is a phase change, not an end of support.

Microsoft's lifecycle table says 10/14/2026. Is the real date October 13 or October 14, 2026?

October 13, 2026. Microsoft stores these lifecycle boundaries as UTC midnight and renders them in Pacific time, so the cell that reads 10/14/2026 6:59:59 AM is the last instant of October 13, 2026 — not a date in October 14. Anyone who reads those cells literally will publish, plan and communicate the entire cluster one day late. The practical rule: a lifecycle cell ending in 6:59:59 AM means end of day on the day before the date printed.

Does the 6:59:59 AM rule apply to every date on a Microsoft lifecycle page?

No, and assuming it does is its own error. The rule applies to cells that carry the 6:59:59 AM timestamp. Cells that carry an 8:00:00 AM timestamp are literal — the date printed is the date meant. On the Dynamics 365 Business Central on-premises Modern Policy page, for example, the 27.x row reads 4/6/2027 8:00:00 AM and the 28.x row reads 10/13/2027 8:00:00 AM, and both are exactly the dates they print. Read each row's timestamp rather than applying a blanket shift.

Is Windows Server 2022 out of support on October 13, 2026?

No. Windows Server 2022 leaves Mainstream Support at end of day October 13, 2026, and enters Extended Support, which runs to end of day October 14, 2031 per its lifecycle page. Security updates continue throughout Extended Support. Framing this as end of support is wrong. There is one concrete capability loss worth planning around: Microsoft's Windows Server 2022 lifecycle page states that hotpatching is supported on Windows Server 2022 Datacenter: Azure Edition Core through the end of Mainstream Support. If you rely on hotpatching to avoid reboots on that edition, that reliance ends on the date.

Is there a Year 4 of Extended Security Updates for Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2?

As checked on August 19, 2026, no Year 4 row exists on either the Windows Server 2012 or the Windows Server 2012 R2 lifecycle page. Year 3 runs from October 15, 2025 to end of day October 13, 2026, and nothing is published behind it. Plan on the assumption that Year 3 is the last one, and treat any later addition as a reprieve rather than something to budget against. If you still have 2012-era servers in production, the remaining runway is measured in weeks.

Does October 13, 2026 affect Skype for Business Server?

Not from this item. Skype for Business LTSC 2021 is the desktop client, shipped as part of the Office LTSC 2021 family, and that is what ends on October 13, 2026. Skype for Business Server 2015 and Skype for Business Server 2019 are a separate product line with their own lifecycle pages and their own dates, and nothing in this cluster speaks to them. If you run an on-premises Skype for Business Server estate, look up your own server product's lifecycle page rather than inferring a server date from the client one.

Why is Office LTSC 2021 for Mac listed twice on Microsoft's end-of-support page?

It is a defect in Microsoft's summary page for products reaching end of support in 2026. Office LTSC 2021 for Mac appears both under the products reaching end of support on October 13, 2026 and under the products moving to Extended Support — two mutually exclusive tables. The product's own lifecycle page resolves it: mainstream end date and extended end date are identical, both rendering as 10/14/2026 6:59:59 AM, which is a zero-length extended phase. Support genuinely ends at end of day October 13, 2026. A reader who trusts the moving-to-Extended-Support listing would reasonably conclude they have years of runway. They have none.

Is Project Online part of the October 13, 2026 cluster?

No — Project Online retires earlier, on September 30, 2026, and it is missing entirely from Microsoft's own end-of-support-2026 summary page. That absence was verified again after the page was rebuilt on August 19, 2026, and it is conspicuous because three other products with Project in the name are listed on that page under other dates. If your PMO runs on Project Online, do not rely on that summary page to tell you so.

What should an IT director do first about this date?

Run an inventory query, not a project. Four questions answer most of it: do we have any perpetual Office, Visio or Project 2021 installs, on Windows or Mac; do we have any Windows Server 2012 or 2012 R2 instances still covered by Extended Security Updates; do we have any Windows 10 Enterprise 2016 LTSB devices; and do we run Business Central on-premises on the 2025 Release Wave 1 build. If all four come back clean, the date costs you nothing except the Windows Server 2022 hotpatching change. If any come back dirty, you have roughly eight weeks.

Field notes · 12 min read · August 19, 2026

Everything Microsoft retires on October 13, 2026

Seven Microsoft lifecycle items land on the same instant: end of day October 13, 2026, Pacific. Microsoft's own tables render that instant as 10/14/2026 6:59:59 AM — read literally, that puts the entire cluster one day late.

October 13, 2026 is the densest single lifecycle date on Microsoft's 2026 calendar. Seven separate retirement and servicing events land on the same instant, spanning perpetual Office, an LTSB Windows client, two generations of Windows Server, a Dynamics ERP build and a communications client. None of them is individually dramatic. Together they are the kind of date that catches an estate sideways, because the items have nothing in common except the day they expire.

This is a triage post, not an encyclopaedia. The question it answers is does this touch my estate, in that order, and the answer for most mid-market environments is that two or three of the seven do and the rest are noise. Before any of that, though, there is a reading problem worth thirty seconds of your attention, because it is the single most common way this date gets published wrong.

The one-sentence version: everything below expires at end of day October 13, 2026, Pacific — even though Microsoft's own tables render that instant as 10/14/2026 6:59:59 AM — and one of the seven items, Windows Server 2022, is a phase change rather than an end of support.

Read the timestamp before you read the date

Microsoft stores these lifecycle boundaries as UTC midnight and renders them in Pacific time. The arithmetic falls out one second short, so the last instant of a support phase displays as 6:59:59 AM on the following calendar day. A cell reading 10/14/2026 6:59:59 AM is not a date in October 14. It is the end of October 13, 2026.

This matters more than it sounds. Every item in this cluster displays as 10/14/2026 in Microsoft's tables. Anyone who copies those cells into a plan, a change calendar or a customer notice publishes the whole cluster one day late — and one day late is exactly the kind of error that survives review, because the source document appears to back it up.

The rule, and its limit. A lifecycle cell ending in 6:59:59 AM means end of day on the day before the date printed. A cell ending in 8:00:00 AM is literal — the date printed is the date meant. Both appear on the same pages. On the Business Central on-premises Modern Policy page, the 27.x row reads 4/6/2027 8:00:00 AM and the 28.x row reads 10/13/2027 8:00:00 AM, and both are exactly the dates they show. Do not apply a blanket one-day shift. Read each row's timestamp.

The inventory, in one table

Every row below was re-checked at learn.microsoft.com on August 19, 2026. The middle column is what the table cell literally displays; the right column is what it means.

Item	What the table cell shows	What it means
Office LTSC 2021, Project LTSC 2021, Visio LTSC 2021	`10/14/2026 6:59:59 AM`, column Mainstream End Date	End of day 2026-10-13. Fixed Policy, with no Extended phase at all — mainstream end is the end.
Office LTSC 2021 for Mac	Mainstream `10/14/2026 6:59:59 AM`, Extended `10/14/2026 6:59:59 AM`	End of day 2026-10-13. Identical dates = a zero-length extended phase. See the defect section below.
Office 2021 perpetual family	`10/14/2026 6:59:59 AM`, column Retirement Date	End of day 2026-10-13. Modern Policy — the opposite policy to the LTSC row above, same day.
Skype for Business LTSC 2021 (the client)	`10/14/2026 6:59:59 AM`	End of day 2026-10-13. This is the Office LTSC family client, not Skype for Business Server.
Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2, ESU Year 3	`10/15/2025 8:00:00 AM` → `10/14/2026 6:59:59 AM`	End of day 2026-10-13. No Year 4 row exists on either page as of 2026-08-19.
Windows Server 2022 — mainstream only	Mainstream `10/14/2026 6:59:59 AM`, Extended `10/15/2031 6:59:59 AM`	Mainstream ends end of day 2026-10-13; Extended runs to end of day 2031-10-14. A phase change, not an end of support.
Windows 10 Enterprise 2016 LTSB	Extended `10/14/2026 6:59:59 AM`	End of day 2026-10-13. Enterprise edition only — this is the LTSB branch, not a mainstream Windows 10 SKU.
Business Central on-prem 2025 RW1 (v26.x)	`4/1/2025 8:00:00 AM` → `10/14/2026 6:59:59 AM`	End of day 2026-10-13. Modern Policy, labelled End of Servicing.

Group 1 — hard stops. If you have these, you have eight weeks.

Perpetual Office 2021, in every flavour. Office LTSC 2021, Project LTSC 2021 and Visio LTSC 2021 sit on Fixed Lifecycle Policy but have no Extended phase — the Mainstream End Date is the whole lifecycle. Office LTSC 2021 for Mac has an Extended phase of zero length, which amounts to the same thing. The Office 2021 perpetual family reaches its Retirement Date under Modern Policy on the identical day by a different mechanism. Different policies, one outcome: after October 13, 2026 none of them receives security updates. The realistic destination is Microsoft 365 Apps, and if you are pricing that move, the July 2026 Microsoft 365 price change is the other half of the business case.

Windows 10 Enterprise 2016 LTSB. The LTSB branch is where regulated estates park machines that cannot take feature updates — imaging workstations, lab controllers, machine-tool front-ends. Those devices are exactly the ones nobody inventories, because they are not in the standard refresh cycle and often are not in the standard management plane either. The date does not care.

Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2, Extended Security Updates Year 3. This is the one with the sharpest edge. Year 3 runs from October 15, 2025 to end of day October 13, 2026, and as of our check on August 19, 2026 neither lifecycle page shows a Year 4. Plan on Year 3 being the last, and treat a later addition as an unearned reprieve rather than a budget line.

That is a hardware conversation as much as a software one, and 2026 is an expensive year to be having it late. The top five NAND Flash brands reported combined revenue up 77% quarter-on-quarter to US$68.87 billion in 2Q26 — those are reported actuals, published August 18, 2026, so the increase has already landed in the channel rather than being on its way. TrendForce's forecast published July 9, 2026 puts server DRAM contract prices up 13–18% quarter-on-quarter in 3Q26, and notes that multi-year long-term agreements signed by US cloud providers cap the increases for those customers. IDC's forecast published June 2, 2026 has the memory shortage persisting through 2027.

The asymmetry is the point. The hyperscalers locked their memory pricing in. A mid-market firm buying three replacement hosts did not. Two consequences follow, and both are uncomfortable: deferral is not a strategy, because waiting for prices to fall is a bet against the only published forecast either analyst house has issued; and the cost is not coming, it has arrived.

On this pillar it compounds. A 2012-era estate is usually retired as part of a wider move off ageing hypervisor hosts, which means new hardware and new licensing land in the same budget cycle — and memory is the largest single line in a host bill of materials. Neither the memory market nor Broadcom's licensing changes alone reframes a business case. Together they change which option wins.

Skype for Business LTSC 2021. Small, and easy to get wrong — see the section below.

Business Central on-premises 2025 Release Wave 1 (v26.x). End of Servicing on the same day. It is one row here because it deserves its own treatment; if you are on-premises and thinking further ahead than this date, the Dynamics GP to Business Central path is where that conversation goes.

Group 2 — Windows Server 2022 is a phase change, and the real story is hotpatching

Windows Server 2022 will be reported as going end of support on October 13, 2026. It is not. Mainstream Support ends that day; Extended Support runs to end of day October 14, 2031. Security updates continue for another five years. If a vendor or a headline tells you to evacuate Server 2022 because of this date, they have misread the table.

There is, though, a genuine capability loss, and it is the reason this row belongs in the post at all. Microsoft's Windows Server 2022 lifecycle page states that hotpatching is supported on Windows Server 2022 Datacenter: Azure Edition Core through the end of Mainstream Support. Hotpatching is what lets those hosts take security updates without a reboot. If your patching runbook for that edition assumes no reboot window, the assumption expires on October 13, 2026 even though support does not. That is a change-calendar problem, and it is the sort of thing that surfaces in the first patch cycle after the date rather than before it.

On the broader question of what to land on instead when Server 2022 is the wrong destination, the Windows Server upgrade tree covers the in-place, re-platform, Arc and Azure IaaS options — including why buying new Server 2022 in 2026 is usually the wrong call even with five years of Extended Support behind it.

Office 2021 End of Support: October 13, 2026Watch on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Group 3 — the things people will wrongly attach to this date

Skype for Business Server. Skype for Business LTSC 2021 is the desktop client, shipped in the Office LTSC 2021 family. Skype for Business Server 2015 and 2019 are a different product line on different lifecycle pages with different dates, and nothing in this cluster tells you anything about them. If you run an on-premises Skype for Business Server estate, go and read your own product's page. We have not, and we are not going to guess on your behalf.
Windows Server 2016. Not on this date — its end of extended support falls in January 2027, and it drags a dependency chain behind it that deserves its own post: Windows Server 2016 end of support — ESU or modernize?
The Windows client fleet. Windows 10 and the Windows 11 servicing calendar have their own edition splits and their own deadlines, and conflating them with the LTSB row above is the fastest way to build a wrong remediation plan. That is covered in Windows 10 ESU and what the 2027 extension does not cover for managed fleets.
Project Online. Retires September 30, 2026 — before this cluster, not on it. More below.

Two defects in Microsoft's own summary page

Microsoft publishes a consolidated page for products reaching end of support in 2026. It is the page most people will land on, and it has two problems that a reader cannot detect from the page itself.

One: Office LTSC 2021 for Mac is listed in two mutually exclusive tables. It appears under Products reaching End of Support — October 13, 2026 and again under Products moving to Extended Support. A product cannot do both. Its own lifecycle page resolves the contradiction: the mainstream end date and the extended end date are identical, both rendering as 10/14/2026 6:59:59 AM — a zero-length extended phase. Support genuinely ends at end of day October 13, 2026. The failure mode is specific and expensive: a Mac Office LTSC customer who reads the moving-to-Extended-Support table would reasonably conclude they have years of runway left. They have none, and their planning horizon is wrong by the entire remaining lifecycle.

Two: Project Online is absent from the page entirely. Project Online retires on September 30, 2026 and does not appear on the 2026 end-of-support summary — verified again after the page was rebuilt on August 19, 2026 at 09:23Z. What makes the omission conspicuous rather than merely unfortunate is that three other products with Project in the name are listed on the page, under other dates. A PMO owner scanning for the word Project will find hits, will not find the one that matters, and will draw the wrong conclusion. We wrote the three realistic paths off it in Project Server and Project Online end of support: three paths.

One more thing worth noticing, because it undercuts the instinct to check whether a page is current. That summary page carries an authored date of April 18, 2025 in its metadata and an updated timestamp of August 19, 2026. Those are different fields measuring different things, and the authored one is not maintained — so the freshness signal on Microsoft's own page disagrees with itself. Do not treat the ms.date value as a last-reviewed date, and do not conclude a page is stale because of it. Verify against the individual product page every time; the product pages are what the support organisation actually honours.

What to actually do before October 13

Query, do not survey. Four inventory questions cover the whole cluster: any perpetual Office, Visio or Project 2021 installs on Windows or Mac; any Windows Server 2012 or 2012 R2 instances still on ESU; any Windows 10 Enterprise 2016 LTSB devices; any Business Central on-premises on the 2025 Release Wave 1 build. If all four come back empty, the date costs you the Server 2022 hotpatching change and nothing else.
Correct the date in anything already written down. If a plan, a change calendar or a client notice says October 14, it was copied from a table cell without decoding it. Fix it now, while the correction is free.
Separate the Server 2022 item out. It does not belong in the same remediation workstream as the hard stops, and putting it there manufactures urgency you will have to walk back. Its only October action is the hotpatching change to the patch runbook for Datacenter: Azure Edition Core.
Treat the 2012 estate as the long pole. If ESU Year 3 is the last one, the remaining servers need a destination, and destinations in 2026 involve hardware lead times and a memory market that is not on your side. Start that one first regardless of how few servers are involved.
Verify every date against the product page, not the summary. Both defects above are on the summary page and neither is on a product page. That is the pattern to plan around.

Sources

The 30-second version

Seven Microsoft lifecycle events expire at end of day October 13, 2026: Office LTSC 2021 with Project and Visio LTSC 2021, Office LTSC 2021 for Mac, the Office 2021 perpetual family, Skype for Business LTSC 2021 (the client, not the server), Extended Security Updates Year 3 for Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2, Windows 10 Enterprise 2016 LTSB, and Business Central on-premises 2025 Release Wave 1. Microsoft's tables render that instant as 10/14/2026 6:59:59 AM, which is why so much published guidance is one day wrong — but rows carrying 8:00:00 AM are literal, so read each one rather than shifting them all. Windows Server 2022 leaves Mainstream Support the same day and stays in Extended Support to 2031; the only real loss there is hotpatching on Datacenter: Azure Edition Core. Microsoft's own 2026 summary page lists Office LTSC 2021 for Mac in two contradictory tables and omits Project Online entirely, so verify against product pages. The 2012 ESU estate is the long pole, because it ends in hardware.

If you want a senior engineer to run the inventory and tell you which of these seven actually touch your estate, the project intake form takes about three minutes. Two-business-day response with scope and a fixed-fee range.

Pro IT NW handles Windows Server end-of-support, VMware exit and server modernization for the regulated mid-market around Seattle. Vendor-neutral, labor-only, senior engineers only. Every lifecycle date in this post was read from the product's own page at learn.microsoft.com on August 19, 2026 — if a date here disagrees with what you have been told, check the product page rather than the summary.

Questions we get asked

What does Microsoft retire on October 13, 2026?: Seven distinct lifecycle events land on the same instant. Office LTSC 2021, Project LTSC 2021 and Visio LTSC 2021 reach their Mainstream End Date with no Extended phase behind them. Office LTSC 2021 for Mac reaches both its mainstream and its extended end date on the same day. The Office 2021 perpetual family reaches its Retirement Date under Modern Policy. Skype for Business LTSC 2021 — the client — ends. Year 3 of Extended Security Updates for Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2 ends. Windows 10 Enterprise 2016 LTSB reaches its Extended End Date. Dynamics 365 Business Central on-premises 2025 Release Wave 1 (v26.x) reaches End of Servicing. Separately and importantly, Windows Server 2022 leaves Mainstream Support on the same day but stays in Extended Support until 2031 — that one is a phase change, not an end of support.
Microsoft's lifecycle table says 10/14/2026. Is the real date October 13 or October 14, 2026?: October 13, 2026. Microsoft stores these lifecycle boundaries as UTC midnight and renders them in Pacific time, so the cell that reads 10/14/2026 6:59:59 AM is the last instant of October 13, 2026 — not a date in October 14. Anyone who reads those cells literally will publish, plan and communicate the entire cluster one day late. The practical rule: a lifecycle cell ending in 6:59:59 AM means end of day on the day before the date printed.
Does the 6:59:59 AM rule apply to every date on a Microsoft lifecycle page?: No, and assuming it does is its own error. The rule applies to cells that carry the 6:59:59 AM timestamp. Cells that carry an 8:00:00 AM timestamp are literal — the date printed is the date meant. On the Dynamics 365 Business Central on-premises Modern Policy page, for example, the 27.x row reads 4/6/2027 8:00:00 AM and the 28.x row reads 10/13/2027 8:00:00 AM, and both are exactly the dates they print. Read each row's timestamp rather than applying a blanket shift.
Is Windows Server 2022 out of support on October 13, 2026?: No. Windows Server 2022 leaves Mainstream Support at end of day October 13, 2026, and enters Extended Support, which runs to end of day October 14, 2031 per its lifecycle page. Security updates continue throughout Extended Support. Framing this as end of support is wrong. There is one concrete capability loss worth planning around: Microsoft's Windows Server 2022 lifecycle page states that hotpatching is supported on Windows Server 2022 Datacenter: Azure Edition Core through the end of Mainstream Support. If you rely on hotpatching to avoid reboots on that edition, that reliance ends on the date.
Is there a Year 4 of Extended Security Updates for Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2?: As checked on August 19, 2026, no Year 4 row exists on either the Windows Server 2012 or the Windows Server 2012 R2 lifecycle page. Year 3 runs from October 15, 2025 to end of day October 13, 2026, and nothing is published behind it. Plan on the assumption that Year 3 is the last one, and treat any later addition as a reprieve rather than something to budget against. If you still have 2012-era servers in production, the remaining runway is measured in weeks.
Does October 13, 2026 affect Skype for Business Server?: Not from this item. Skype for Business LTSC 2021 is the desktop client, shipped as part of the Office LTSC 2021 family, and that is what ends on October 13, 2026. Skype for Business Server 2015 and Skype for Business Server 2019 are a separate product line with their own lifecycle pages and their own dates, and nothing in this cluster speaks to them. If you run an on-premises Skype for Business Server estate, look up your own server product's lifecycle page rather than inferring a server date from the client one.
Why is Office LTSC 2021 for Mac listed twice on Microsoft's end-of-support page?: It is a defect in Microsoft's summary page for products reaching end of support in 2026. Office LTSC 2021 for Mac appears both under the products reaching end of support on October 13, 2026 and under the products moving to Extended Support — two mutually exclusive tables. The product's own lifecycle page resolves it: mainstream end date and extended end date are identical, both rendering as 10/14/2026 6:59:59 AM, which is a zero-length extended phase. Support genuinely ends at end of day October 13, 2026. A reader who trusts the moving-to-Extended-Support listing would reasonably conclude they have years of runway. They have none.
Is Project Online part of the October 13, 2026 cluster?: No — Project Online retires earlier, on September 30, 2026, and it is missing entirely from Microsoft's own end-of-support-2026 summary page. That absence was verified again after the page was rebuilt on August 19, 2026, and it is conspicuous because three other products with Project in the name are listed on that page under other dates. If your PMO runs on Project Online, do not rely on that summary page to tell you so.
What should an IT director do first about this date?: Run an inventory query, not a project. Four questions answer most of it: do we have any perpetual Office, Visio or Project 2021 installs, on Windows or Mac; do we have any Windows Server 2012 or 2012 R2 instances still covered by Extended Security Updates; do we have any Windows 10 Enterprise 2016 LTSB devices; and do we run Business Central on-premises on the 2025 Release Wave 1 build. If all four come back clean, the date costs you nothing except the Windows Server 2022 hotpatching change. If any come back dirty, you have roughly eight weeks.

Written by the team at Pro IT NW · Senior-led Microsoft project consultancy · Seattle / USA-wide.

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