Microsoft 365 price increase for consumers

Edwin said:

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Did they really remove Publisher from the Office suite?
I like Publisher and still have it as part of my Microsoft 365 Family subscription.

Stigg said:

Did they really remove Publisher from the Office suite?
I like Publisher and still have it as part of my Microsoft 365 Family subscription.

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Yep

Office LTSC 2024 will not ship with Microsoft Publisher, which is being retired, or with the Microsoft Teams app, which is available to download separately.

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End of support 10/2026:

dacrone said:

Publisher is still on 2021 Pro. I read somewhere it is not on 2024 but I don’t know for sure as I don’t need 2024.
Why pay for cloud storage when you can just build NAS with 14tb mirrored storage for ~$1000 (obviously cheaper if you use lower tb storage drives) and it’s yours. No rental, can use it for media, phone real-time sync backups and pc backups.. not to metion many other features no cloud service is going to provide you with.

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You don´t need to pay anything like $1000 (US) for a NAS. Any old laptop will do -- IMHO though those Mini PC's are excellent for this purpose (and they even come with W11 Pro pre installed on them so you can use that as a W11 VM !!). You can pick these up for around $210 (US) for cheaper models which work perfectly. You can either run these headless or will need a screen / Mouse -- if you are good at cmd line then headless is fine, otherwise get a keyboard,screenand mouse switcher if you don't have a spare screen/keyboard/mouse.

Just install any Linux -- I'd suggest Fedora Server and if you don't need a GUI as you can use the web interface from a browser to access the system, maintain it, add software etc etc

e.g - I'm accessing this from a remote Windows VM running on another machine - so no problem accessing from Windows.



Just use https://<your server name /IP>:9090 from any web browser

antspants said:

Yep



End of support 10/2026:

Microsoft Publisher will no longer be supported after October 2026 - Microsoft Support

support.microsoft.com

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These subscriptions are getting Bonkers -- Not Apr 1st yet but I saw somwhere that on the latest models of some new cars you will have to pay a subscription to use the fob thing to unlock the doors and start your car !!! --

I think people should roll back on these things wherever possible -- good place to start is whenever getting a new phone to buy it outright -- always invariably hugely cheaper than taking out an ISP provided "Upgrade contract" - plus pay as you go SIMS are better than most monthly plans.

As for Office/365 one will have to wait and see if Publisher will be dropped - It;s fine in Office LTSC 2021 which remains current for around another 12 months or so -- Office 2024 doen't thrill me at all and it's dropped a load of languages too.

But as always with subscriptions --once these companies have "locked in" a sufficient number of "victims" then rhey can increase the price at will -- I think the basic Ms subscription is rising by > 10% this year too. Spend your hard earned dosh elsewhere !!!.


Cheers
jimbo

antspants said:

Yep



End of support 10/2026:

Microsoft Publisher will no longer be supported after October 2026 - Microsoft Support

support.microsoft.com

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It seems like it's Bye! Bye! Publisher.

Stigg said:

It seems like it's Bye! Bye! Publisher.

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Yeah it’s a shame in my opinion because I always found that it was a good introduction for kids to learn their way around a PC or even design.

jimbo45 said:

I saw somwhere that on the latest models of some new cars you will have to pay a subscription to use the fob thing to unlock the doors and start your car !!!

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I don’t understand how they could possibly get away with that, Jimbo?

antspants said:

I don’t understand how they could possibly get away with that, Business is business. Where there's a will there's a way. Might be hidden in clause 74,327 on page 421 of "The smal,#

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antspants said:

I don’t understand how they could possibly get away with that, Jimbo?

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Hi there
Business is business -- where there's a will there's a way. They could hide this in the middle of 74,267 "small print conditions" on page 259 of 543 in the extra conditions / exclusions etc which seem to accompany almost anything you buy these days -and nobody ever reads them. I believe some airline companies even used to have a condition on the back of their tickets "The purchase of a ticket does not guarantee that we have to fly you" or similar nonsense to that. !!!

The excuse in this case is that "you are paying for software upgrades etc" !!!!! = I'll stick to old mechanical keys !! - at least they can't get hacked. A couple of hungry Dobermanns as well helps.

If these people can get away with this rubbish and people don'tt complain then that's what happens. I'm no socialist but some modern capitalist practices really are "the thin end of the wedge" !!!!.

cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 said:

You don´t need to pay anything like $1000 (US) for a NAS. Any old laptop will do -- IMHO though those Mini PC's are excellent for this purpose (and they even come with W11 Pro pre installed on them so you can use that as a W11 VM !!). You can pick these up for around $210 (US) for cheaper models which work perfectly. You can either run these headless or will need a screen / Mouse -- if you are good at cmd line then headless is fine, otherwise get a keyboard,screenand mouse switcher if you don't have a spare screen/keyboard/mouse.

Just install any Linux -- I'd suggest Fedora Server and if you don't need a GUI as you can use the web interface from a browser to access the system, maintain it, add software etc etc

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doesnt offer near the capabilities of a nas. but to each their own.

also back to topic, you can just downgrade your subscription to "classic" to avoid paying for the copilot feature

dacrone said:

doesnt offer near the capabilities of a nas. but to each their own.

also back to topic, you can just downgrade your subscription to "classic" to avoid paying for the copilot feature

How to Avoid Paying for Microsoft 365 Copilot by Downgrading to Classic

Don't be forced to pay more against your will!

www.howtogeek.com

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?? In what conceivable way doesn't a Linux server have the capabilities of a NAS-- in fact some of the prioprietary NAS boxes have lower specs, a lot more expensive and are far more cumbersome to use than even a fairly basic modern mini PC running almost any version of Linux.

Those QNAP things are expensive, runs on proprietary software which makes maintenance or addition of desirable applications horrible or even impossibleif you are thinking of getting one of those.

Here's a test MiniPC I bought for €190 during a Black Friday sale -- I tested it with installing a full workstation GUI desktop (KDE) as a test, added a Windows Canary W11 Pro as a VM on KVM/QEMU 2X 14 TB Hard disks plus a coupple of smaller ones. The GPU is 4K UHD capable (X2 although only using 1 port), internal memory is 16GB RAM, internal 1TB NVME and CPU is 4X@3.40 Ghz --more than enough needed for running a NAS.

Memory use is normally around 1GB RAM but as I'm running an 8GB RAM W11 VM on it - that's why memory is higher. These boxes can be fitted with more RAM if required but for a basic file / media server NAS and for running backups the basic installed set is more than enough.



Unless you are running a commercial operation the capabilities of this tiny box are far more than you need for a typical NAS !!!!even with a load of file sharers -- your Internet bandwidth is more than likely to be the limiting factor if you are running this from a domestic ISP provider and have many users from the wider internet.

Many of those huge commercial cloud servers all run Linux as well as Windows Server versions. Latest versions of Windows server are good too but as Linux is Free and open source compared to Windows Server which is very pricy for ordinary users unless you can get hold of a 180 day trial version I don't recomment Windows server as a NAS for a home or even small office.


Cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 said:

IMHO though those Mini PC's are excellent for this purpose (and they even come with W11 Pro pre installed on them so you can use that as a W11 VM !!). You can pick these up for around $210 (US) for cheaper models which work perfectly.

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jimbo45 said:

In what conceivable way doesn't a Linux server have the capabilities of a NAS

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lets keep consistency here. never did i say a nas would outperform SERVER hardware. those cheap mini PCs, though... i fully guarantee it, given you use a decent nas

Currently paying £7.99 a month for Family, I've just switched to Family Classic for the same price. I don't want or need AI crap anyway
I don't remember getting an email about the prices going up, it's always been £7.99

BrianInEngland said:

Currently paying £7.99 a month for Family, I've just switched to Family Classic for the same price. I don't want or need AI crap anyway
I don't remember getting an email about the prices going up, it's always been £7.99

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From memory with Microsoft 365 subs, the price increases only at renewal.

Marcus Vinicus said:

From memory with Microsoft 365 subs, the price increases only at renewal.

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I pay monthly though, there's no 'renewal' involved