Upgrading from MS Office 2013 to current 2024 software

Question

Hello. My laptop has died. I was running Windows 10 and MS Office Home & Business 2013. I use all the programmes. Before I buy a new machine, I want to know if the current version of Office reads all the files from 2013, including some earlier files that I didn't upgrade yet. In addition, I use Outlook a lot. If I go straight to a Windows 11 machine, will I be able to access my old Outlook pst files? Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

Hi JP,

The upgrade from Office 2013 to a newer edition of Office support your files created.

Regarding your old Outlook .pst file - how is your laptop - had harddrive or?

Normalt when you setup Outlook you are logging in to your mail provider and Outlook will download all your e-mails again like it was before on your old laptop.

//Michael

Answer 2

Hi JP,

Thanks for your post.

Please understand that the newest version is Office 2021. Microsoft has not announced a 2023/2024 version yet. Office is backwards compatible and 2013 files will generally open in 2021 in compatibility mode. However new features are added along the way to 2021 version and so if 2021 file uses those new features, they will not work on 2013. For us this is not our issue because we need to upgrade not downgrade.

Here is the Office 2021 new feature reference.

Buy Microsoft Office 2021 | Microsoft 365

Best Regards,

Ian Xue

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Answer 3

Microsoft Outlook 2024 is expected to ship in the classic version.

At the same time, there is a new Outlook for Windows. It is web based and pst is coming in the future.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/getting-started-with-the-new-outlook-for-windows-656bb8d9-5a60-49b2-a98b-ba7822bc7627
Support for other formats has been implemented.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/open-eml-msg-and-oft-files-in-outlook-60f71e69-e9a5-445b-b4dd-2e0d5aaf21d6?OCID=NewOutlook_Tips_LearnMore