Microsoft is working hard on the next perpetual version of Office program. In a recent post, Microsoft announced that Office 2019, the next perpetual version of Microsoft Office, will ship later this year.

Since Office 2019 is the perpetual version, it will include all the features that Office 365 received since the release of Office 2016.

As mentioned earlier, Office 2019 will be available for everyone in the second half of 2018. The preview version of Office 2019 apps will be available in the second quarter of this year.

Office 2019 supports Windows 10 only

Interestingly, according to Microsoft, Office 2019 will be exclusive to Windows 10. This means that PC users running Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 will not be able to install or use Office 2019 on their PCs. That is, Office 2019 will not support Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1.

According to this Microsoft blog, Office 2019 will be supported on:

Any supported Windows 10 SAC release

Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2018

The next LTSC release of Windows Server

Microsoft has also confirmed that Office 2019 client apps will be released with click-run installation technology only and it won’t provide MSI setup files.

Office 2019 will get five years mainstream support and approximately two years of extended support.

If you cannot wait for Office 2019 release, you can try or buy Office 365 right away to experience almost all the features of Office 2019.

Users running Office 2016 on Windows 10 will be able to upgrade to Office 2019 without much hassle.

We will update this article once Microsoft reveals more about Office 2019.

In short, if you are on Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1, you will have to upgrade to Windows 10 to install and use Office 2019.