Hi all
I'm in the need of some out of the box thinking with an upgrade dilemma -- I'm really struggling to find a solution.
So, the background: We have Windows XP on a Windows Server 2003 setup... stop laughing and rolling your eyes. I know, it's shocking.
We're trying to upgrade to the latest s/w versions, but it's impossible to do it all at once as there are so many factors and risks.
We'd like to use Office 365 to host or email. We've done some tests and all is well, if we use Office 2007 (which runs on XP). However Microsoft will drop support for the Office 2007 connector at the end of October so O2007 will not be able to connect to the Office 365 server.
We then decided to go for the big bang approach and upgrade all the PCs to Windows 10 Pro and Office 2016. However, our Database server client software does not support Windows 10. We'd need to upgrade our DB server and clients to achieve this.
Windows 7 Pro would work, with Office 2010, and our DB Client software. However Neither W7 nor O2010 can be purchased via Microsoft. There are OEM versions available from questionable sources but I suspect they are not 'legal' as OEM should only be installed as part of a new PC.
I can't think of another solution to using Office 365 hosted email and an Outlook client.
Short of throwing it all in the bin and starting a fresh, does anyone have any great ideas?
thanks
David
I'm in the need of some out of the box thinking with an upgrade dilemma -- I'm really struggling to find a solution.
So, the background: We have Windows XP on a Windows Server 2003 setup... stop laughing and rolling your eyes. I know, it's shocking.
We're trying to upgrade to the latest s/w versions, but it's impossible to do it all at once as there are so many factors and risks.
We'd like to use Office 365 to host or email. We've done some tests and all is well, if we use Office 2007 (which runs on XP). However Microsoft will drop support for the Office 2007 connector at the end of October so O2007 will not be able to connect to the Office 365 server.
We then decided to go for the big bang approach and upgrade all the PCs to Windows 10 Pro and Office 2016. However, our Database server client software does not support Windows 10. We'd need to upgrade our DB server and clients to achieve this.
Windows 7 Pro would work, with Office 2010, and our DB Client software. However Neither W7 nor O2010 can be purchased via Microsoft. There are OEM versions available from questionable sources but I suspect they are not 'legal' as OEM should only be installed as part of a new PC.
I can't think of another solution to using Office 365 hosted email and an Outlook client.
Short of throwing it all in the bin and starting a fresh, does anyone have any great ideas?
thanks
David
