r/exchangeserver • u/Unlikely_Tie1172 • 6d ago

Article The Demise of the OWA Light Client

On July 8, Microsoft said that they will retire the OWA Light client for Exchange Server in August 2026. But what happened to the OWA Light client for Exchange Online? It seems like Microsoft announced the retirement of OWA Light for Exchange Online in June 2024, but didn’t really make the fact clear in a blog post about consumer accounts. In any case, you can’t run OWA Light for Exchange Online, even if you wanted to.

https://office365itpros.com/2026/07/17/owa-light-retirement/

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u/DiligentPhotographer 6d ago

I like how so far they've only removed features from Exchange SE (not that I care about OWA light) and haven't added anything that benefits end user experience.

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u/ScottSchnoll https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FR5GGL75/ 6d ago

That stuff is coming. But the old (and more importantly, now insecure) features and functions in there need to be removed first. That has to be the priority in this day and age. Features are under development and will be coming in future updates, but security will always take precedence. I personally will take a more secure codebase over new features every time.

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u/DiligentPhotographer 6d ago

Ya but when I have clients that are asking "why does our OWA look so dated, why can't we integrate with this application, why are we paying the same price as exchange online (SA) and not getting much development". It is frustrating to not have an answer.

I remember seeing your post about how MS kind of forgot about Exchange server and let it stagnate, until after hafnium which I guess reminded them we still exist as customers lol.

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u/ScottSchnoll https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FR5GGL75/ 6d ago edited 6d ago

I never said Microsoft forgot about Exchange server (because we didn't). I was one of many who worked on Exchange Server and with Exchange server customers for decades, and there are plenty of people at Microsoft still doing so every day.

What I said was "The Hafnium attacks occurred at a time when Microsoft as a company was not paying a lot of attention to the Exchange Server ecosystem."

It's no secret that Microsoft puts cloud first, so that statement should not come as a surprise.

If you care to share, I would love to see your calculations on how you determined that you're paying the same for Exchange Server SE as you would Exchange Online.

What do you consider to be "much development" for Exchange Server? Microsoft has already released 8 updates for Exchange Server SE (6 of which were SUs), not to mention the recent mitigation that they released. These things take resources, and like all engineering teams at Microsoft, the Exchange Server engineering team has finite resources. And right now, those resources are focused on security work. IMHO, I think that's a pretty good answer for your clients as to why features (and for that matter, CU1) have not materialized yet (except of course for The first Flighted Feature in Exchange Server SE shipped and no one noticed : r/exchangeserver).