All business owners should be aware of which Microsoft products they use. It’s one of the many complex and confusing parts of managing your technology. Of course, all great things must eventually come to an end, and the same applies to your mission-critical applications and operating systems. When your solutions can no longer be considered secure and are no longer supported by the developer, you know it’s time to move on and upgrade to something better.

Microsoft has a certain way of handling support for their software. For five years following the release of a software or operating system, Microsoft provides what’s known as “mainstream support,” where they accept requests for new features and fixes for key issues. After mainstream support ends, the product enters an “extended support,” period, where all warranties end, and the only thing provided to the solutions are key security fixes.

Once extended support ends, a product reaches its “end of life,” where Microsoft cuts off support completely. This also means that your systems will no longer be patched for critical security flaws.

Below, we’ve listed all of the Microsoft products that will be reaching their end of support date on July 10th and July 12th, 2016. If your organization is still taking advantage of any of these solutions, it’s important that you consider upgrading to a more recent version of the software, or to an entirely different solution. Failing to do so will place your important business systems at risk.

Service Packs Reaching End of Support

• Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013
• Microsoft Dynamics SL 2011 Service Pack 2
• Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Business Intelligence
• Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Developer
• Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Enterprise
• Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Enterprise Core
• Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Express
• Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Standard
• Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Web
• Microsoft System Center 2012 Configuration Manager Service Pack 1
• Microsoft System Center 2012 Endpoint Protection Service Pack 1
• Microsoft System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager
• Microsoft System Center 2012 R2 Endpoint Protection
• Microsoft System Center 2012 R2 Endpoint Protection for Linux
• Microsoft System Center 2012 R2 Endpoint Protection for Mac

Products Moving from Mainstream to Extended Support
Products marked with * expire on July 10th, 2016, rather than July 12th, 2016.

• * Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System Headquarters 2.0
• * Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System Store Operations 2.0
• Microsoft Project Server 2010
• Microsoft Dynamics SL 2011
• Microsoft SQL Server Compact 4.0
• Windows MultiPoint Server 2011 Premium
• Windows MultiPoint Server 2011 Standard

Products Moving to End of Support

• Microsoft ActiveSync 4.2
• Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 Developer Edition
• Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 Enterprise Edition
• Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Branch Edition
• Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Developer Edition
• Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Enterprise Edition
• Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Standard Edition
• Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 Standard Edition
• Microsoft Commerce Server 2007 Developer Edition
• Microsoft Commerce Server 2007 Enterprise Edition
• Microsoft Commerce Server 2007 Standard Edition
• Microsoft Connected Services Framework Billing Standard Business Event 3.0
• Microsoft Connected Services Framework Order Handling Standard Business Event 3.0
• Microsoft Connected Services Framework Server 3.0
• Microsoft Connected Services Framework Standard Server 3.0
• Microsoft Connected Services Framework Standard Server with Standard Business Events 3.0
• Microsoft Visual J# Version 2.0 Redistributable Package
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server

Is your business still using any of these technologies or services? If so, contact Argentum IT at (502) 473-6407. We’ll work with you to ensure that your systems aren’t left unsupported. Doing so is a liability that your business shouldn’t have to deal with.