With Office LTSC 2024 now available, what's the difference with Microsoft 365?

Months ago, Microsoft opened the commercial preview of Office LTSC 2024, a long-term servicing channel for specialized scenarios where cloud-based features aren’t feasible, such as regulated devices or manufacturing systems.

The good news now is that Microsoft has just recently announced the general availability of Office LTSC 2024.

As the announcement says, this version includes updated features from Microsoft 365, such as improved Excel, Outlook, and overall performance, while lacking cloud-based features like real-time collaboration and AI integration, especially with the Copilot offering.

“Office LTSC 2024 offers a locked-in-time version of familiar productivity tools, updated with a subset of the features that have been added to Microsoft 365 Apps for the enterprise over the last three years,” Microsoft mentions.

Supported for five years, Office LTSC 2024 can be deployed alongside Microsoft 365 Apps, helping organizations manage hybrid environments. But still, while it does offer certain benefits, Microsoft still encourages most customers to consider Microsoft 365 for more advanced cloud-based features and AI tools.

Microsoft 365’s premium apps can be installed on up to 5 Windows PCs or Macs, while Office LTSC 2024 only lets you install classic apps on one PC or Mac.

The report arrived just in time with the Microsoft 365 Copilot’s “Wave 2” event, which announced a lot of new AI smarts to Office apps. Microsoft promised that it would bring the latest AI models to Copilot, including OpenAI’s new o1 model, which excels in reasoning.

On Outlook, for example, Copilot can now “prioritize your inbox” to help you sort those piling emails based on what Copilot thinks is more important. We’re also getting an AI-powered narrative builder on PowerPoint, Python in Excel, a file summarizer on OneDrive, and Copilot Pages.