Office 2003, which was with Service Pack 3 (SP3), will leave mainstream support in less than two weeks, and enter extended support. Typically, Microsoft keeps a product in the former for five years, then shifts it into the latter for another five.

Microsoft launched Office 2003 in November of that year.

According to Microsoft's standard policies, mainstream support delivers free fixes -- for security patches and other bug fixes -- to everyone. During extended support, however, nonsecurity hot fixes are provided only to companies that have signed support contracts with Microsoft.

The suite is the second major Microsoft product slated to enter semiretirement in less than two weeks. Also on April 14, Microsoft will , the company's most successful operating system, into extended support.

Late Thursday, Microsoft have been exploiting a critical unpatched bug in PowerPoint 2003, the presentation maker part of every edition of Office 2003. The company has not set a timetable for releasing a patch for the vulnerability, however.