Office Pro Plus to LTSC

[Warwick_Tech]

Hi All,

 

Silly question really, but MS licencing and wording is always fun to decode - Especially VLSC and WSUS

 

I assume Office LTSC Professional Plus 2021 is the 'same' as Office Professional Plus 2019 - Why have they added the Long term Service Channel?

 

 

EDIT: Also what really is the difference between 365 and 2021?

 

configuration-Office365-x64.xml

configuration-Office2021Enterprise.xml

Edited October 25, 2021 by Warwick_Tech

[Boredguy]

Difference between Office 365 and Office 2021 is simple.... 2021 will not any any regular updates over it's life time, where as Office 365 is always being up dated.

They added the LTSC to Office as a way to get people on to using 365

[Warwick_Tech]

Difference between Office 365 and Office 2021 is simple.... 2021 will not any any regular updates over it's life time, where as Office 365 is always being up dated.

They added the LTSC to Office as a way to get people on to using 365

 

Ah, so really we should be using 365 install not 2021 as that's the better option (?)

 

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/what-s-the-difference-between-microsoft-365-and-office-2021-ed447ebf-6060-46f9-9e90-a239bd27eb96

 

It's all so simple now! (not)

Edited October 25, 2021 by Warwick_Tech

[Boredguy]

The idea they have is that everyone where possible is using Office 365 as long as you have suitable licencing in place (be it the free A1 Plus For Students/Faculty or any of the other brackets).

[Warwick_Tech]

The idea they have is that everyone where possible is using Office 365 as long as you have suitable licencing in place (be it the free A1 Plus For Students/Faculty or any of the other brackets).

 

Seems logical, I assume I still input the PIDkey for Office 2021 for the 365 install?

 

[Norphy]

Difference between Office 365 and Office 2021 is simple.... 2021 will not any any regular updates over it's life time, where as Office 365 is always being up dated.

They added the LTSC to Office as a way to get people on to using 365

 

Office 2016 and 2019 were always LTSC builds of Office, they just made the labelling more obvious with 2021.

 

I think it's more accurate to say that LTSC builds of Office don't get feature updates, rather to say that they're not updated at all. They still get security updates during their lifetime. An LTSC build of Office is essentially a snapshot of the SAC at that particular point. This means LTSC is that the interface and feature set will remain the same for the entire life of the support cycle of the product, whereas the 365 version of the desktop Office client will receive regular feature updates.

 

There are advantages to either solution; with the LTSC build you've got a consistent experience for the three/five years you've got it installed, whereas with the SAC build you're getting new feature updates as they become available and the SAC builds work better with the Office 365 web components. The disadvantage is that Microsoft have a habit of changing things on a whim and things end up not working the way that people expect after a hotfix. They also changed the default interface for Outlook in a recent update which caused wailing and the gnashing of teeth with one of my customers fairly recently.

 

So it's a question of weighing up the pros and cons and deciding which is the best solution for you.

[Warwick_Tech]

Thanks both,

 

That was surprisingly simple!

 

It still even runs under Office16 so all the GPO's are correct - Though I assume there are now updates so I'll rummage for them.

 

Regards,

[Lurkovic]

Office 365 apps rely on a subscription for licensing and so don't use product keys - i.e. KMS/MAK.

 

To use Office 365 apps you need Azure AD SSO enabled for the app to license against the user seamlessly when it is opened, providing the user has the correct license assigned, or your machines need to be Azure AD Hybrid connected for you to be able to use device based licensing.

[KK20]

depends on your licensing of course. We use the "Desktop Education" approach with a "free" M365AppsforenterpriseOpen on top of our A1. This was cheaper for us previously. For our next renewal I am looking at a different 365 license so will lose our office LTSC. For that reason I binned the idea of upgrading 2019 to 2021 and went from 2019 to 365 desktop instead.

 

A completely painless approach with almost identical XML. Some minor oddities when a person first used the new office (it still came up with the old splash screens and the version still thought it was the old version but new functionality was there such as "publish to stream" and subtitles in powerpoint!)

 

Since we were going from an x86 to x64 this also meant I could easily search for markers in our migration script.

[KK20]

depends on your licensing of course. We use the "Desktop Education" approach with a "free" M365AppsforenterpriseOpen on top of our A1. This was cheaper for us previously. For our next renewal I am looking at a different 365 license so will lose our office LTSC. For that reason I binned the idea of upgrading 2019 to 2021 and went from 2019 to 365 desktop instead.

 

A completely painless approach with almost identical XML. Some minor oddities when a person first used the new office (it still came up with the old splash screens and the version still thought it was the old version but new functionality was there such as "publish to stream" and subtitles in powerpoint!)

 

Since we were going from an x86 to x64 this also meant I could easily search for markers in our migration script.

 

As for differences, 2019 does not have co author capability whereas 2021 and 365 does. 365 has publishing options that are not available to 2021 such as powerpoint publish to stream etc. All versions can use 365 accounts, 365 NEEDS the 365 account or you get a big licensing error. This might be an issue if you are hybrid and use local service accounts - they wont be able to use office apps (maybe exam accounts in offline environments?). It might be one to consider if you have exam account requirements as these will need office 365 connectivity to license now. If you do go with 2021 you can request a KMS key from MS and add it easily enough.