Office 2021

[JPMi]

When will Office 2021 be available for download as a software benefit?

We are setting up a couple of new PCs with Windows 11, and would like to add Office 2021 to them.

[wizardofwor]

STILL looking for Office 2021, and current versions of Project, Visio, Exchange....  Janosch, can you check again?  Thanks.

[JanoschUlmer]

@1pek : I do not know any ETA when O2021 will be added.

As per the MPN benefits table still only 2019 is listed, so should not have been a surprise since this info is available before obtaining the action pack.

Note also that O2021 gives you 10 activations, if you need to reinstall Office another activation is consumed, the total number of licenses you can use might be far lower than O365 since each user can activate 5 copies at the same time.

[1pek]

Hello,
When will we have access to Office 2021?
I remind you that, as part of the partnership, MAP gives access to 10 Office Classic licences... whereas Office 365 only offers 5.
So Office 365 cannot replace Office 2021!

I have just renewed my Microsoft Action Pack and I only see Office 2019... where is Office 2021 ???

I feel a bit cheated

I look forward to hearing from you

[RoMi]

Is there any (good?) news regarding Office 2021 for MAPS? I have renewed my MAPS but it still gives me only Office 2019.

[kgoranov]

I did not get reason of missing Office 2021 in MAPS

Also latest version of MS Project is missing.

I think subscription gives us the latest versions of MS products

[johancronje]

Who keeps marking this as solved? It still is not.
I am not able to activate Office 2019 anymore.

I am also not going to buy Office 365 with licenses that I will need to pay in perpetuity.

[JanoschUlmer]

@johancronje : You have O365 E3 licenses as part of the benefits this thread is about, no need to buy them. And the thread is marked as solved, because some answer solved the issue of the submitter (or some user said it does).

If you have a different scenario (as it is obviously the case with the O2019 problem), it would be a better idea to open a new thread. 

[johancronje]

This was not the question though.

[JanoschUlmer]

@johancronje Just seeing those replies in the thread - then, what is the question you had? 

[Clipper87]

I need to test Office 2021 LTSC , it's frustrating as a paying Action Pack customer to just have to wait and see while the product is readily available for quite some time now. Not all customers are cloud minded or have reasons to work disconnected. When will it be available in Action Pack ?

[JanoschUlmer]

@Clipper87 : If you just need it for testing, install it using ODT and enter the KMS generic key (GVLK), this will allow to run it for some time until it moved into unlicensed state, maybe allowing to cover the time until it will be added. For using it in production, you would of course need to wait until it is included in MAPS

[john_at_physoft]

@JanoschUlmer, how long after Office 2019 was released was it added to the MPN IUR benefits?  I know that we can't to hold you to a similar timeline for Office 2021, but it would be interesting to know, nonetheless.  Also, is there a policy document you can point us to that discusses additions to MPN IUR benefits?

Thanks,

- John

[JanoschUlmer]

@john_at_physoft : I don't have any saved license tables from this timeframe, when I recall correctly it was 2-3 months after release. 

The policy documents applicable are a the MPN agreement (Can be found in Partner Center --> Account Settings --> Agreements), and the Usage Guide: https://partner.microsoft.com/en-us/membership/internal-use-software 

None includes any specific rulings, policies or commitments when new products are added, if this is the question.

[john_at_physoft]

I still appreciate that you cannot share a hard timeline, but is there at least a plan to release Office 2021 sometime in 2022?  It's been almost 4 more months and still only Office 2019 is available.

[JanoschUlmer]

@john_at_physoft : My understanding was yes, have reached out again to the team (I'm not working in  the team handling the IUR benefits). It might be that going forward, only the O365E3 benefits will remain which include a newer Office version than what's in Office 2021, but waiting for confirmation.

[john_at_physoft]

That would be highly disappointing because part of the purpose of the partner membership is to be able to access versions to test and configure them before we go forward with a larger purchase and production roll-out.  Granted, this is hardly "ahead of the crowd" since we would only be able to access these versions (long?) after initial release, but that just gives Microsoft time to work out the worst bugs before we get it, right? 🙂

[JanoschUlmer]

@john_at_physoft : Well, technically you can test with any older release office Office 365 Apps in O365E3, which are technically the same as Office 2021 (Office 2021 is roughly a 2020 version of the O365 Apps). 

For other testing purposes I would also recommend to look at becoming a Silver Partner, , Silver/Gold benefits include Visual Studio Subscription benefits, which give access to almost all Microsoft products released in the last 20 years. And there are also evaluation versions available, respectively you can test with a Office version enabled for KMS activation for multiple months as well (since the Office download is enabled in the Office Deployment Tool, you don't have to have a license to download and install it).

[jimerb1]

is M365E3 included in the action pack?

[JPMi]

No it isn't.

Office 365 E3 is included under Azure & Cloud.

Windows 11 you can find here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows11. Use your key for Windows 10.

[JanoschUlmer · Accepted solution]

@JPMi : There is currently no ETA when this will be added to MPN IUR benefits, additions to IUR benefits do not happen regularly, and not automatically when a new software version is released.

However, you have also the M365E3 benefit which includes both Windows 11 E3 and M365 Apps for Enterprise, so you have access to Office Apps which is even newer than Office 2021.