Before the 2027 IT Budget: Which Products Lose Support, and When?

October is budget month. Most companies build next year’s IT budget as “last year plus a few percent”, yet the biggest lines of the coming year tend to arrive on their own: software that loses support, a subscription that lapses, hardware whose warranty ran out. They usually make it onto the list only when somebody asks, “wasn’t that server’s support ending?” This post asks that question early, with the dates in one place.

The Microsoft side: what has closed and what is about to

I checked every date below against Microsoft’s lifecycle pages and announcements. Prices are list prices and vary by partner and agreement type.

Product	Support status	Options
Exchange Server 2016 / 2019	Ended 14 October 2025	Exchange Online or Exchange Server Subscription Edition
SQL Server 2016	Ended 14 July 2026	Upgrade, move to Azure, or paid ESU (until 2029)
Windows 10	ESU year two began 14 October 2026	$122 per device, or a new device
Office 2021 and LTSC 2021 (including Visio, Project)	Ended 13 October 2026, no ESU	Microsoft 365 Apps or Office LTSC 2024
Windows Server 2016	Ends 12 January 2027	Windows Server 2022/2025, or ESU through Azure Arc

Office 2021 is the one people talk about least. The apps still open, nobody sees a warning, but security patches have stopped and there is no extension programme. It tends to surface only when an audit or an insurer asks.

For Windows 10 I went through the details in the ESU year two post: a device that joins in year two also pays year one retroactively, so $183 in total. For servers, see the Windows Server 2016 post. ESU through Azure Arc became generally available in August 2026, billing starts on 13 January 2027, and on-premises servers need Software Assurance or an equivalent subscription.

Dates outside Microsoft that people forget

Nobody owns the calendar for these, which is why they slip.

• SSL certificates: maximum validity has been 200 days since 15 March 2026. A yearly reminder no longer works; I covered it in a separate post.
• Firewall subscriptions: when the licence ends the box keeps running, but IPS and web filtering quietly stop. This post lists what goes silent.
• Vendor warranties and support contracts: servers, switches, NAS, backup appliances. A device that fails after warranty means days waiting for a part.
• UPS batteries: usually 3 to 5 years, less in a hot server room. A tired battery fails exactly when the power does.
• Domains and cloud subscriptions: for anything on auto-renew by card, the card’s expiry date is also an expiry date.

How to build the inventory

A spreadsheet is enough. Four columns per item: product or model, version, end date, owner. The last one gets skipped most. An item whose date is known but whose renewer is not becomes an orphan when the date arrives.

If you buy managed IT, ask your provider for this list. Remote monitoring tools already collect version data; adding end dates next to it is a small job. If your own team looks after IT, one PowerShell report covering Windows build, server OS and SQL version gives you the first pass.

What goes first?

Not everything is replaced at once, and not everything needs to be. My order:

1. Internet-facing systems with patching already stopped. Exchange 2016/2019 is the example. These come first.
2. Dates that are close. Windows Server 2016 is under three months out; migration, testing and application compatibility barely fit in that.
3. Things you can bridge. ESU buys a few years, but it gets more expensive each year (the Windows 10 price doubles annually), so do not budget it as a permanent fix.
4. Systems reachable only from inside the office and holding no sensitive data. Lower risk, so they queue later.

A worked example: with 40 Windows 10 devices all entering ESU in year two, list price gives 40 × $183 = $7,320. If half of them are old enough for replacement anyway, putting ESU on that half and budgeting new devices for the other half often comes out cheaper.

Frequently asked

Does unsupported software stop working?

No, it keeps running. What changes is that new vulnerabilities go unpatched. Some audit and insurance forms also ask directly whether you run supported software.

Is there ESU for everything?

No. It exists for Windows 10, Windows Server 2016 and SQL Server 2016. There is none for Office 2021, and no announced programme for Exchange 2016/2019.

How often should the list be refreshed?

Every quarter is enough. A single count made right before the budget meeting is usually incomplete.

If building the inventory is hard, or you would like to talk through which item should go first, get in touch.