# Office 365 on Remote Server



## Jes in DC (Jun 4, 2002)

I have a remote server for a handful of users who work remotely full-time and it is also set up for all 30 users to use as needed when working remotely. It is currently running Windows 2012 R2 with Office 2013 Perpetual license. We use Exchange Online for email. We also have Office 365 Business Premium (but business premium does not work on remote servers which is why we still have office 2013 on that remote server).

I understand after October 13, 2020 Exchange Online will no longer work on Office 2013 or 2016 (and the length of time it will work on perpetual licence versions of office will be considerable shorter going forward so if I upgraded to Office 2019, exchange online will only work on it until 2023 (which obviously doensn't make financial sense). Since Office 365 Business Premium doesn't work on remote servers, I believe I'd need to upgrade our office 365 licences to E3. I understand that E3 WILL work on remote servers and while it's a lot more expensive than o365 business premium, it's significantly cheaper than having to upgrade the perpetual licence and then upgrade the perpetual licence again in less than 3 years.

What I'm trying to figure out is what the OS will need to be upgraded to on the remote server in order to run E3. What I'm seeing on Microsoft's website is:
"You can install Office 365 ProPlus on an RDS server with these requirements: 

Windows 8.1
Windows Server 2016
Currently supported Windows 10 SAC release"
Does that mean it wouldn't work on Windows 2019?

I'm beginning to think the remote server is more trouble than it is worth and I should just set everyone up with direct access to their individual PCs.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.


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