The following article is designed to be a resource to The University of Iowa community for information and instruction pertaining to compatibility and system requirements for Microsoft Office 2016.
Is your computer ready to run Office 2016?
Find out the hardware and software requirements for Office 2016 on Microsoft's System Requirements for Office 2016 & Microsoft 365 page.
- Microsoft Office 2016 (codenamed Office 16) is a version of the Microsoft Office productivity suite, succeeding both Office 2013 and Office for Mac 2011 and preceding Office 2019 for both platforms. It was released on macOS on July 9, 2015, and on Microsoft Windows on September 22, 2015, for Office 365 subscribers.
- Office 2016 for Mac is a version of Office that’s available as a one-time purchase from a retail store or through a volume licensing agreement. It will be supported with security updates and bug fixes, as needed, until October 13, 2020. The minimum supported macOS for Office 2016 for Mac is 10.10 (Yosemite).
Office 2016 Mac Compatibility
Why can't I install Office 2016 on Windows 7, Windows XP or Windows Vista?
You’ll need a computer running Windows 8 and above to install Microsoft Office 2016. If you try to install Office 2016 with Windows XP or Windows Vista, it will not work. Consider upgrading to Windows 8 or above, or read more about Office 2016 requirements.
Can I use Office 2016 on my Macintosh computer?
Support for Office 2016 is will end on October 13, 2020 on Macintosh computers. Your Office 2016 applications will continue to function, will not disappear from your Mac nor will you lose any data. More information regarding this change in support can be found on Microsoft's End of Support for Office 2016 for Mac page.
I’m thinking about giving Outlook 2016 a try but I know we are not using the latest version of Exchange.
You're using Exchange 2016 with a.local domain? That's bad news. Seriously, your organization needed - badly - to get AWAY from that prior to migrating to Exc 2016, Quite seriously, it's 2017. Time to stop messing about with invalid and fake 'TLDs' - use a subdomain if necessary, but not.local. Furthermore, as adoption of Microsoft 365 or Office 365 accelerates and cloud usage increases, custom support options for Office products will not be available. This includes Exchange Server, as well as Microsoft Office, SharePoint Server, Office Communications Server, Lync Server, Skype for Business Server, Project Server, and Visio. Does anyone know whether Office 2019 for Mac is compatible with Exchange 2016 Online Archive? If so, have you seen any documentation supporting this? I found this page, but it has not been updated for Office 2019 for Mac.
- Which versions of Exchange does Outlook 2016 support?
- How can I check which version I’m currently using?
- How do I configure an Exchange account in Outlook 2016?
As a general rule of thumb, any version of Outlook supports 5 different Exchange versions;
- 2 previous versions of Exchange
- its corresponding Exchange version
- 2 future versions of Exchange
So Outlook 2016 supports;
- Exchange 2010
- Exchange 2013
- Exchange 2016
- Exchange 2019 (vNext 1)
- Exchange vNext 2
Note: To determine your current version of Exchange from within Outlook see: Which Exchange version am I using?
Configuring an Exchange account in Outlook 2016
The option to manually configure an Exchange account has been removed in Outlook 2016. This was a legacy configuration screen that was only needed for Exchange 2003 and previous and didn’t really serve a purpose anymore for later versions of Exchange.
Office 2016 For Mac Exchange Compatibility Guide
Instead of using the manual configuration use the Auto Account Setup wizard.
Depending on your Update Channel of Office, you either only have to fill out your email address or need to provide your name, email address and password and your Exchange account will be automatically configured by the settings that are being pushed from the Autodiscover service of Exchange.
Don’t make it any harder for yourself than needed; The new Add Account dialog only requires your to fill out the email address of the account you want to add.
Even in the old Auto Account Setup dialog, you are only really required to fill out your email address to add an Exchange account.
Auto Account Setup fails
When Auto Account Setup fails, contact your Exchange administrator as it would indicate a configuration issue with the Autodiscover service in the Exchange environment.
Proper configuration of the Autodiscover and Outlook Anywhere service can be tested via the Microsoft Remote Connectivity Analyzer.
For more information about configuring the Autodiscover and Outlook Anywhere service see: Autodiscover: Some quick methods to get it working.
Exchange versions and Outlook support
Exchange support works in the same way, so Exchange 2016 will no longer support Outlook 2007.
The only exception to this was when you were connecting to an Office 365 Exchange 2016 server.
However, as of October 31, 2017, Office 365 dropped support for Outlook 2007 as well. This wasn’t a total surprise considering that support for Outlook 2007 itself stopped on October 10, 2017 already.