Office 2024 LTSC activation and publisher removed?

[5nowman]

Hope you have all survived week 1!

 

How are you all activating office 2024 LTSC? I used to use VAMT 3.1 for older versions. It does not take the key for 2024 LTSC

 

Also.. Did you know they removed Publisher?!?!  Our teachers have gone mental!

We are google and are going to be forced to give out office 365 logins just for publisher. Sounds mental. Anyonne else in the same situation>

 

Thanks in advance

 

5nowman

[3s-gtech]

Publisher’s EoL has been heavily pushed by Microsoft for some time. It has another year yet, until Office 2021 LTSC goes EoL.

 

It’s not included in 365 any more I thought? If it is, it could disappear at any time.

 

We activate Office by pushing the KMS key in the install config, and using AD Activation. Working well.

[mikes]

It is part of our 365 install, though our install is a few months old. Apparently it is due for retirement in Office 365 in mid 2026 so your teachers should get used to not using it. 

I thought I'd be shocked if our teachers still use it but asking around apparently some still do! (Especially the older ones)

I am just testing deploying Office 2024 LTSC now that MS no longer officer A1 Plus, luckily in Wales if you have the Hwb KMS set up it should activate. 

[5nowman]

On 08/09/2025 at 09:43, mikes said:

It is part of our 365 install, though our install is a few months old. Apparently it is due for retirement in Office 365 in mid 2026 so your teachers should get used to not using it. 

I thought I'd be shocked if our teachers still use it but asking around apparently some still do! (Especially the older ones)

I am just testing deploying Office 2024 LTSC now that MS no longer officer A1 Plus, luckily in Wales if you have the Hwb KMS set up it should activate. 

I have a MAK and KMS key

normally use VAMT with MAK. VAMT 3.1 does not recognise the key

[5nowman]

All,

 

DO any of you actually have publisher on your office 365 education?

 

I just checked and it is NOT there! strange right?

 

Am I missing a trick for my school?

[paulkerton]

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/office/microsoft-publisher-will-no-longer-be-supported-after-october-2026-ee6302a2-4bc7-4841-babf-8e9be3acbfd7

[5nowman]

26 minutes ago, paulkerton said:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/office/microsoft-publisher-will-no-longer-be-supported-after-october-2026-ee6302a2-4bc7-4841-babf-8e9be3acbfd7

It is actually worse

 

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/servicedescriptions/office-365-platform-service-description/office-365-education

 

Microsoft has 3 levels of Faculty
 

A1,A3, A5

 

A3 and A5 does have publisher, A1 the free one does not.

 

 

[paulkerton]

21 minutes ago, 5nowman said:

It is actually worse

Well, that depends what you mean by worse. I've been looking forward to the end of Publisher for the better part of a decade and a half now! 🤣

Nothing quite like a document format that can 10x it size simply by overlapping a text box with another... 

Schools across the country need to make Publisher EOL a big thing all academic year, as there is little point starting in September with it, when it'll be gone before the first half-term break.

[5nowman]

11 minutes ago, paulkerton said:

Well, that depends what you mean by worse. I've been looking forward to the end of Publisher for the better part of a decade and a half now! 🤣

Nothing quite like a document format that can 10x it size simply by overlapping a text box with another... 

Schools across the country need to make Publisher EOL a big thing all academic year, as there is little point starting in September with it, when it'll be gone before the first half-term break.

 

I cannot tell my staff that they need to run a powershell script to convert pub files loll!

 

I know.. pdf converstion and other methods.

 

Will install a lower office version and they can do as they wish on a few designated machines! Then a timer to Octover 2026

 

Thank you for that though

[Steve21]

Have you installed the office 2024 volume license pack (exe) before trying to activate the key?

 

There is a prerequisite install for new installs on the vamt server

 

Steve

[5nowman]

On 23/09/2025 at 21:48, Steve21 said:

Have you installed the office 2024 volume license pack (exe) before trying to activate the key?

 

There is a prerequisite install for new installs on the vamt server

 

Steve

Normally don't need to do this if you are using the MAK key. ALSO.. now you cannot run 2 versions of Office at the same time!!! I can't have office 2024 and just publisher from the 2021 pack which is not good!

[itskdog]

We've got the free Canva for Schools licence and are encouraging staff to migrate over to it.

 

In my testing I found that exporting a Publisher file as PDF and importing that PDF to Canva seemed to work as a transfer mechanism.

 

Will probably keep a standalone device with LibreOffice or Office 2021 around so we can export to PDF for staff to add to Canva.

[paulkerton]

8 minutes ago, itskdog said:

We've got the free Canva for Schools licence and are encouraging staff to migrate over to it.

Good luck. We're getting the resistance to change in some areas for a vocal minority, and Canva is becoming a bit of a scapegoat for them being upset that Publisher is being retired. There is a lot of change management going to be needed here as the misplaced frustation about losing the status quo from some is a bit obvious.

[itskdog]

7 minutes ago, paulkerton said:

Good luck. We're getting the resistance to change in some areas for a vocal minority, and Canva is becoming a bit of a scapegoat for them being upset that Publisher is being retired. There is a lot of change management going to be needed here as the misplaced frustation about losing the status quo from some is a bit obvious.

 

Initially I spoke to a few staff that I know use Publisher who came in over the summer holidays, and they were hesitant at first. I had also been getting it in people's heads a little bit if there was any support requests for Publisher ever since it got announced in the M365 Message Centre.

 

But as soon as I showed them around (especially the AI tools and graphics library) they seemed happier. It's almost like getting the old Clip Art feature in Office back for them.

 

Will be sending a broader email blast at some point I'm sure, then we'll see the wider reactions, but I think many people just put up with Word to make stuff that should be made in Publisher anyway.

 

[F56enthusiast]

We bought Publisher Converter from Forgeclass and asked Staff to put their publisher files in a known folder, we then ran the converter against that folder. It converts to PDF and Word in one click. It's saved me hours so far.

 

https://forgeclass.co.uk/publisherconverter.html

 

 

[Space_Munkey]

On 03/11/2025 at 11:58, tomicarr said:

We bought Publisher Converter from Forgeclass and asked Staff to put their publisher files in a known folder, we then ran the converter against that folder. It converts to PDF and Word in one click. It's saved me hours so far.

 

https://forgeclass.co.uk/publisherconverter.html

 

 

 

How good is this converter - we're looking at pulling the trigger but just wondering whether the resulting word documents keep the layouts intact etc.

[cheekycharly]

I've skim read through this...

 

Has the way activation is done for Office 2024 LTSC changed from Office 2021 LTSC?

 

No serveres here so I used to just put the key in the package and create an installer file that I manually ran on laptops that needed LTSC. (There was nerver many just exams laptops)

[cheekycharly]

I see from YouTube it's still config.office.com so still the same as previous.