Microsoft Exchange Server on prem gets a little harder to use

It’s the end of the road for yet another facet of Exchange Server, Microsoft’s on-premises email and calendar system. The stripped-down version of its web client, Outlook Web App (OWA) Light, is being retired, forcing those Exchange Server users still using it to adopt the standard Outlook Web App instead. “OWA Light was created for a much earlier era of the web, when browser support, bandwidth, and accessibility technologies were very different from today. Going forward, we want to invest in a modern Outlook on the web experience that provides the cross-browser, accessible, and security-focused experience,” said Microsoft. Those enterprises still operating in a resource-constrained environment are out of luck, then. The change will be effected in an upcoming Exchange Server update expected in August. The move should come as no surprise: Microsoft had already deprecated the light version of Outlook in August 2024. Microsoft said that sysadmins should spend the next couple of months preparing for the change by identifying any staff still using OWA Light. This is just the latest alteration that Microsoft has made to its Exchange ecosystem, which some holdouts still use instead of the SaaS-based Microsoft 365 service. However, even on-premises customers must now pay a subscription fee to use Exchange Server. One of the advantages of SaaS offerings is that customers don’t have to deal with patching, an advantage brought home to on-premises customers in May when a zero-day exploit struck Exchange Server.