The clock is ticking for administrators pondering a migration path to Exchange Online from an elderly version of Microsoft’s email server. Support for public folder migrations from Exchange Server 2010 and older is set for deprecation.
Microsoft will block public folder migrations from October 1, including any already in process. As such, a customer planning a migration will need to complete it by then or face an abrupt plug-pulling, which would be less than ideal if it happened midway through.
Once the axe falls on migration services for older versions of Exchange Server, customers will need to migrate public folders to a newer version first, from where they can then migrate to Exchange Online.
Yes, that sounds like a bit of a hassle to us too. An alternative might be to rethink a company’s messaging requirements.
As for why Microsoft is doing this, it said: “We are deprecating support for public folder migrations from Exchange Server 2010 and older versions to Exchange Online to reduce reliance on older systems and improve long-term service reliability.”
Which would be fine if it weren’t for the fact that support for Exchange Server 2010 only ended in 2020, so ending Microsoft’s migration tools feels a bit premature, even considering the dominance of Exchange Online.
In 2020, as support finally came to an end, there were still plenty of Exchange 2010 servers out in the wild. Earlier versions were also still ticking over. Exchange was, after all, tricky to upgrade and migrate from, and for many enterprises, the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mantra also carried weight.
Exchange Server has been the subject of multiple attacks over the years, with zero-day flaws being actively exploited. The situation was so bad that it took until 2025 for Microsoft to finally release a subscription-only version of Exchange.
Even Microsoft’s preferred option for customers, Exchange Online, is not immune to the odd fault, and has fallen over on occasion, making administrators perhaps think twice about migrating.
However, the end for Microsoft’s public folder migration tools for older versions of Exchange Server indicates that time is running short if Exchange Online is the preferred destination.
Whatever an administrator decides, sticking with that aging server hardware is no longer a viable option. Microsoft said: “We do not encourage customers to use those long unsupported versions of Exchange in any way.”
“Long unsupported” = “Five years ago.” ®