The most Microsoft support document of all time

I have stumbled upon the most Microsoft support document of all time.

Support for the Microsoft Store installation type of Microsoft 365 Apps is ending. New feature updates will stop in October 2025 and security updates will end in December 2026.

If you have the Microsoft Store installation type of Microsoft 365 Apps, you must upgrade to the Click-to-Run installation type for continuing new features and security updates. The following steps show how you can upgrade the installation type of Microsoft 365 products on a PC from the Microsoft Store to Click-to-Run.
↫ End of support for the Microsoft Store installation type of Microsoft 365 Apps

There is so much to unpack here.

First, if you’re not neck-deep in Microsoft lore, you might not even know what Microsoft 365 Apps even are. Remember Office 365, the subscription version of Microsoft Office? It’s called Microsoft 365 now, for some inexplicable reason, but you probably haven’t noticed because it is a stupidly confusing, nondescript name that nobody out in the real world uses. Adding to the confusion, in 2022, Microsoft announced it would phase out the Office name in favour of calling both the subscription version and the regular, buy-once-run-forever version “Microsoft 365”, but then changed their mind a year later, and as such, the regular, buy-once-run-forever version is now still called Office.

Oh and there’s also the “Microsoft 365 Copilot app (formerly Office)” (at Office.com?) which I think is what used to be called the mobile iOS/Android Office application, which existed alongside the individual mobile Office applications on these platforms (because that was a thing, too – maybe still is?)? I don’t know man, I merely have two university degrees, which clearly isn’t enough to understand any of this 4D office suite chess.

Anyway, the Microsoft 365 Apps (so the subscription version of what was temporarily formerly known as Microsoft Office) can be installed either through the Microsoft Store, which is the application store bundled with Windows that you never use, or through something called Click-to-Run. Apparently, Microsoft is discontinuing the Microsoft Store version of the Microsoft 365 Apps, and is urging everyone to move to the Click-to-Run version of the Microsoft 365 Apps.

Alright, we’re getting really, really deep into the very darkest crevices of the Microsoft Cinematic Universe lore now.

The Microsoft Store version of the Microsoft 365 Apps is almost entirely identical to the Click-to-Run version of the Microsoft 365 Apps, except for one tiny part: the exact packaging method of the applications. Whereas the Microsoft Store version is packaged and delivered in Microsoft’s Appx packaging format (designed for the Universal Windows Platform or UWP), the Click-to-Run version is packaged and delivered through, well, Click-to-Run. So, what is that, exactly?

Click-to-Run is an entirely custom application streaming technology specifically designed for and exclusively used by Microsoft Office. You download a very small installer, which then proceeds to download the various Microsoft 365 applications like Word, Excel, and so on, which you can then start using well before the entire download is finished. The technology is similar to Microsoft App-V. It’s actually remarkably difficult to find detailed documentation about Click-to-Run, which is odd considering Microsoft is usually quite decent at providing documentation for its technologies.

So what Microsoft is announcing in this support document is that if you have Microsoft 365 Apps installed through the Microsoft Store, you’re going to have to switch to the Click-to-Run version. You can check which installation type you’re using by going to File > Account (it might be called Office Account, because everything is made up and nothing is real) – under Product information locate the About button, where it’ll list the installation type.

If your installation type is Microsoft Store, you need to switch to the Click-to-Run version to keep receiving updates. To do so, download the Click-to-Run installer and run it, which will automatically remove the Microsoft Store version of the Microsoft 365 Apps and replace them with the Click-to-Run versions. The reason they’re making you do this is that the Click-to-Run version offers enterprises and corporate customers more control over deployment, update schedules, configuration options, and so on. The Microsoft Store version is more suited for normal consumers, but Microsoft doesn’t care about those, and never has, and never will.

Why is Microsoft?