Downgrading from Microsoft 365

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FieldMouse

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#324949 18-Jun-2026 10:45

I had a standalone version of Windows 11 Professional until my son came home to live.

He has Microsoft 365 and he has included me in his plan.

The difficulty is that I use MS Publisher extensively and that will be discontinued in October. However stand alone versions will continue to work, just no upgrades etc.

If my son removes me from his 365 plan, will my computer revert to the original standalone Windows 11?

Brumfondl

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#3503919 18-Jun-2026 10:49

Apparently Publisher will continue to work after October:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-US/publisher/microsoft-publisher-will-no-longer-be-supported-after-october-2026

From that website:

How will this affect you:

You can continue to use Publisher with its current functionality until October 2026.

FieldMouse

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#3503923 18-Jun-2026 11:06

The Standalone version will continue, but without support

Microsft 365 users will not be able to even open a Publisher file

Brumfondl

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#3503934 18-Jun-2026 11:48

My apologies. I read that well wrong :(

nitro

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#3503940 18-Jun-2026 12:06

FieldMouse:

I had a standalone version of Windows 11 Professional until my son came home to live.

He has Microsoft 365 and he has included me in his plan.

The difficulty is that I use MS Publisher extensively and that will be discontinued in October. However stand alone versions will continue to work, just no upgrades etc.

If my son removes me from his 365 plan, will my computer revert to the original standalone Windows 11?

I suppose by "standalone version of Windows 11 Professional", you mean MS Office Professional. Would that be correct? if that has been uninstalled when you moved to MS365, don't expect anything to automatically "revert" back. you would have to install that "standalone version" again.

you might also have to "Save As" your current publisher files to the previous version supported by your standalone version.

nztim

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#3503944 18-Jun-2026 12:33

Brumfondl:

Apparently Publisher will continue to work after October:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-US/publisher/microsoft-publisher-will-no-longer-be-supported-after-october-2026

Only for Perpetual versions, if you buy your Office 365 by subscription it will be gone

Any views expressed on these forums are my own and don't necessarily reflect those of my employer.

rhy7s

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#3503945 18-Jun-2026 12:49

Do you have any previous version of Publisher from before you tagged along on your son's 365 subscription? If you have a perpetual license for 2021, you could use it in an unactivated Windows virtual machine, if 2016 you could run it via WINE in a Linux VM.

Have you considered Affinity https://www.affinity.studio/download or Scribus https://www.scribus.net/ going forward (Scribus requires you to be pretty intentional about your design, you won't be winging it with templates).

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FieldMouse

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#3503955 18-Jun-2026 12:58

rhy7s:

Do you have any previous version of Publisher from before you tagged along on your son's 365 subscription? If you have a perpetual license for 2021, you could use it in an unactivated Windows virtual machine, if 2016 you could run it via WINE in a Linux VM.

Have you considered Affinity https://www.affinity.studio/download or Scribus https://www.scribus.net/ going forward (Scribus requires you to be pretty intentional about your design, you won't be winging it with templates).

Yes, I had a licence. Thanks, I'll look at Affinity

FieldMouse

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#3503956 18-Jun-2026 13:03

nztim:

Brumfondl:

Apparently Publisher will continue to work after October:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-US/publisher/microsoft-publisher-will-no-longer-be-supported-after-october-2026

Only for Perpetual versions, if you buy your Office 365 by subscription it will be gone

I didn't buy it. My son added me to his family subscription

FieldMouse

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#3503957 18-Jun-2026 13:05

nitro:

FieldMouse:

I had a standalone version of Windows 11 Professional until my son came home to live.

He has Microsoft 365 and he has included me in his plan.

The difficulty is that I use MS Publisher extensively and that will be discontinued in October. However stand alone versions will continue to work, just no upgrades etc.

If my son removes me from his 365 plan, will my computer revert to the original standalone Windows 11?

I suppose by "standalone version of Windows 11 Professional", you mean MS Office Professional. Would that be correct? if that has been uninstalled when you moved to MS365, don't expect anything to automatically "revert" back. you would have to install that "standalone version" again.

you might also have to "Save As" your current publisher files to the previous version supported by your standalone version.

Sorry yes. MS Office Pro

I didn't uninstall anything. My son just added me as a family subscription

Tinkerisk

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#3504445 19-Jun-2026 12:49

For Linux it‘s Scribus and LibreOffice Draw … just in case. 😁

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