Microsoft ends support for Office 2021 amid service outages

Microsoft has officially ended support for Office 2021, including the Office LTSC 2021 version used by many enterprises. As of October 13, 2026, these applications will no longer receive security updates, bug fixes, or regular technical support. While the software remains functional, Microsoft warns that users face increased security risks by continuing to use unsupported versions.

Coinciding with this transition, some users in Europe, specifically in Germany and the UK, experienced connectivity issues with Microsoft 365 services. The outage affected Global Secure Access (GSA) infrastructure, impacting access to Outlook, OneDrive, SharePoint Online, Teams, and Windows 365 Cloud PCs. Microsoft attributed the issue to GSA infrastructure performing below acceptable performance thresholds and noted that administrators faced difficulties accessing the Service Health Status page during the incident.