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Office 2019 for Windows - all the facts, prices and warnings

Here’s all about Office 2019 for Windows – the facts, prices and shortcomings.  There’s a matching page about Office 2019 for Mac.

Before you get too excited

Do NOT buy Office 2019 if you have Microsoft 365 like Microsoft 365 Family (formerly Home), Microsoft 365 Personal or an enterprise plan.  In other words, you pay for Office as an annual fee.

Office 2019 is NOT like past versions such as Office 2016, Office 2013 etc.  It’s NOT a new version intended for all Microsoft Office users.

Anyone on a Microsoft 365 (was Office 365) plan does NOT need Office 2019.

Microsoft 365 ‘subscribers’ have a more advanced version of Microsoft Office already.

Office 2019 is NOT the most up-to-date version of Microsoft Office.

Later in 2021, Office 2019 will be replaced by Office 2021 (for consumers and small businesses) and Office LTSC (volume customers, organizations). At this stage, it’s probably better to wait and buy Office 2021 rather than Office 2019.

What is Office 2019?

Office 2019 for Windows or Mac are separate versions of Office for anyone who buys the perpetual license.

Perpetual License is what Microsoft calls paying once for the ongoing use of Microsoft Office.

Compared to the ‘subscription’ or annual payment model of Microsoft 365 that Microsoft prefers and has been pushing customers towards.

Office 2019 is for non-subscription customers who want some new features but won’t switch to the regularly updated Office software sold via Microsoft 365.

Microsoft wants all customers to ‘subscribe’ to Office because that’s more profitable for the company with a more regular cash flow. But there are a significant number of corporate users who refuse to pay that way or they don’t want the increasingly cloud connected features of the main Office software sold with Microsoft 365 plans.  See Microsoft’s dirty little secret about Office 2019.

Who should buy it?

Anyone who wants any of the new/changed features in Office 2019 and is prepared to pay once for essentially fixed feature software.

Unlike the Microsoft 365 subscription releases, Office 2019 will not get any feature updates over time.

Who should NOT buy it?

If you have an Microsoft 365 plan do NOT get Office 2019.

Existing Office software for Microsoft 365 users already have all the features in Office 2019 plus a lot more.

When will it be released?

Office 2019 for Windows and Mac are now available to volume licence and commercial customers.

Individual sales of Office 2019 are now available from the usual retailers. Discounts on Office 2019 are rare.

Which products?

Office 2019 for Windows has Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher, Access, Project, and Visio, depending on the bundle you get.

32-bit or 64-bit software.

OneNote is also listed but the Windows desktop software has already been given death sentence  and the OneNote app is preferred.  See Is Onenote really included in Office 2019?

Features

According to Microsoft “Office 2019 includes a meaningful subset of features found in Office 365″.   In other words, it has less than the current Office software sold to Microsoft 365 customers.

There are no cloud-linked features in Office 2019.  Features like Dictate, Designer, Linked Data Types, Excel dynamic arrays and Map Charts aren’t in Office 2019.

Here’s the current feature list from Microsoft which is not complete, but gives a good idea of what’s in and what’s not in Office 2019

Word

  • Black theme
  • Office sounds
  • Learning tools captions and audio descriptions
  • Text to speech
  • Improved inking functionality
  • Accessibility improvements

Excel

  • Funnel charts and 2D maps
  • New Excel functions and connectors
  • Publish Excel to PowerBI
  • PowerPivot enhancements
  • PowerQuery enhancements

PowerPoint

  • Zoom capabilities for ordering of slides within presentations
  • Morph transition feature
  • Insert and manage Icons, SVG, and 3D models
  • Improved roaming pencil case

Outlook

  • Updated contact cards
  • Office 365 Groups (requires Exchange Server)
  • @mentions
  • Focused inbox
  • Travel and delivery summary cards

Windows 10 only

Office 2019 for Windows only works on Windows 10.

Microsoft can probably give some vague technical reasons for dropping Windows 7 and 8, the real reason is money. Microsoft has always used Office compatibility to push sales of newer Windows.

Click to Run

Office 2019 for Windows is only available as a ‘Click to Run’ (CTR) install.  The older single-download or .MSI install has been dropped.

Less Support

An important point about Office 2019 for Windows is the lower support entitlement.  Microsoft says that Office 2019 will get ‘quality and security patch updates’ aka bug fixes for less time than the company’s own policy.

Microsoft own ‘fixed’ support policy gives customers five years of ‘mainstream’ support with patches for security and bugs then another five years of ‘extended’ support.

The ‘extended’ support has been shortened to two years instead of five. After 14 October 2025 (not 2028) there’ll be no security patches for Office 2019.

Prices

See Complete price list for Office 2019

Will there be future perpetual license Office releases?

From Redmond’s marketing and pricing it’s little secret that Microsoft wants all customers to pay annual ‘subscriptions’ and will drop perpetual license Office if possible.

They have announced the two replacements for Office 2019.

Office 2021 – for consumers

Office LTSC – a similar product for commercial / volume licence customers.

Running Office 2019 with Office 2016

You cannot install Office 2019 to run ‘side-by-side’ with Office 2016 or any earlier version of Office.

If you need multiple versions of Office, it’s much better to use virtual machines – either Hyper/V or VMWare Workstation.  Windows 10 for Microsoft Office users has a chapter with step-by-step instructions on setting up a virtual machine with Microsoft Office.

More info

The Microsoft Office 2019 FAQ  has the official line on Office 2019 using Microsoft’s own brand of corporate speak and weasel words.

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