[German]A short addendum or information for administrators in companies who are responsible for Microsoft Office. There will be a Microsoft Office 2024 in 2024, and a preview was announced for April 2024 (see Microsoft Office Office 2024 and Microsoft Office LTSC Office LTSC 2024: Preview in April 2024). Microsoft has now officially released the Microsoft Office LTSC 2024 version as a preview for the macOS and Windows operating systems. Interested administrators from the corporate environment can now test this Office version, which is aimed at corporate environments. The preview is explicitly not aimed at private users.
Office LTSC 2024 preview announced
I had already seen it on various websites the other day, but then came across the following tweet from Scott Schnoll (Senior Product Marketing Manager at Microsoft) with the announcement overnight.
Microsoft has officially made the whole thing public in the Techcommunity post Commercial preview of Microsoft Office LTSC 2024 is now available on April 18, 2024.
What is Office 2024 LTSC?
According to Microsoft, Microsoft Office LTSC was developed for special use cases that require a long-term maintenance channel. These are, for example, regulated devices that may not receive functional updates for years, such as systems for controlling manufacturing processes that are not connected to the Internet, or medical test devices that run embedded applications that cannot simply be updated with an Office 365.
Microsoft Office LTSC 2024 will include features from previous versions of Office (such as Excel, Word, PowerPoint, etc.), as well as a subset of new features available in Microsoft 365 Apps for Business. It is important to note that Microsoft Office LTSC 2024 will only be supported for five years (Microsoft has reduced the previous 10 years of product support to five years for all newer LTSC versions).
According to Microsoft, Microsoft Office LTSC 2024 for the commercial preview includes the applications Access, Excel, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint, Skype for Business and Word. According to this website, the following previews are available in the preview program.
- Microsoft Office LTSC 2024 for the commercial preview
- Microsoft Project 2024 Preview
- Microsoft Visio 2024 Preview
Information on the preview version of Office for devices on macOS can be found in the article Overview of Office LTSC 2024 for Mac (preview version). The final release of Microsoft Office LTSC 2024 is planned for the second half of 2024 and will be released alongside Windows 11 LTSC 24H2.
Microsoft has also announced that administrators can use a common deployment tool to install either Microsoft Office LTSC 2024 or Microsoft Office 365 on corporate devices. Microsoft has published its own support document Install Office LTSC Preview Version, which describes the installation and activation of this Office version. The supported operating systems are also listed there:
- Windows 11 (at least for ARM-based device)
- Windows 10 LTSC 2021
- Windows 10 LTSC 2019
- Windows 10
- Windows Server 2022
It is important to Microsoft that interested parties note that this preview is intended for commercial users and is not for personal use. Commercial customers who participate in the preview can explore new features, test compatibility with existing systems, and provide valuable feedback to refine the final release.
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