If your organization runs SharePoint Server 2016 or 2019 as your document repository, intranet, or collaboration backbone, or if InfoPath forms are still stitched into your approval workflows, the July 14th deadline isn’t a future risk anymore. It’s a present one. SharePoint Server 2016 and 2019 have officially exited extended support, and InfoPath has hit its own end-of-life milestones. Unless you have InfoPath Form Services in SharePoint Online, nothing shut off automatically, which is exactly why so many organizations haven’t felt the impact yet. Here’s what has actually changed and what’s at risk if you don’t take action.

SharePoint Server 2016 and 2019: Officially Unsupported

As of July 14, 2026, SharePoint Server 2016 and SharePoint Server 2019 have both reached the end of extended support. That’s true whether you’re using SharePoint purely as a document repository, as your intranet, or, as is the case for most organizations, as the backbone of a broader collaboration strategy spanning file storage, team sites, workflows, and search. From that date forward:

  • No security updates are being provided
  • No bug fixes or product updates are being issued
  • Running these platforms exposes your organization to increasing security and compliance risk

Every day that passes without security patches leaves your environment subject to vulnerabilities that attackers actively scan for once a platform is confirmed unsupported. That risk isn’t limited to your intranet home page; it extends to every document library, permission structure, and integration built on top of the platform. For organizations in regulated industries, running unsupported infrastructure can also jeopardize compliance certifications and audit outcomes, regardless of whether an actual breach occurs.

Two Ways Forward

Organizations generally have two viable paths, and the right one depends on regulatory posture, data sovereignty needs, and how central SharePoint is to your document management and collaboration strategy:

  1. Migrate to SharePoint Online as part of a broader cloud-first modernization strategy: the recommended path for most organizations, unlocking continuous updates, AI-powered capabilities, and a unified home for documents, intranet content, and team collaboration.
  2. Upgrade to SharePoint Server Subscription Edition (SE) for organizations with regulatory, compliance, or data sovereignty requirements that still need to modernize on-premises rather than move to the cloud.

InfoPath: One of 2026’s Most Impactful Retirements

InfoPath’s end-of-life milestones may be the least visible but most disruptive part of July 14, 2026 for many organizations, simply because InfoPath forms tend to be embedded deep inside business processes that predate current IT staff. As of that date, InfoPath Forms Services has ceased functioning in Microsoft 365 and SharePoint Online. The same date also marked the end of extended support for the InfoPath 2013 client.

What this means in practice:

  • The InfoPath 2013 client may still run, but should now be used with caution
  • Any business-critical forms should be replaced immediately
  • InfoPath Forms Services–based solutions in Microsoft 365 have simply stopped working

That last point deserves emphasis: unlike the SharePoint Server timeline, where systems keep running unpatched, InfoPath Forms Services in Microsoft 365 have no grace period. Forms built on that service have stopped functioning outright, which may already be silently breaking approval workflows, HR processes, and intake forms that teams have relied on for years, sometimes without anyone realizing it until a form fails to submit.

Modern Replacement Options

Microsoft’s recommended modernization path routes InfoPath workloads toward the Power Platform, with the right tool depending on complexity:

  • Power Apps: for structured, data-driven forms and business applications
  • Power Automate: for automating the workflows that used to sit behind InfoPath submissions
  • Microsoft Forms: for simpler surveys and lightweight data collection

Why “Still Working” Is the Riskiest Phrase in IT

The most dangerous outcome of this milestone isn’t a system that fails visibly, it’s one that keeps limping along. Unsupported SharePoint Server environments are still serving pages and still holding years of business-critical documents. Legacy InfoPath 2013 clients may still open forms. That apparent stability creates a false sense of security that delays action, even as the organization accumulates unpatched vulnerabilities and increasingly brittle, undocumented workarounds. The risk grows quietly with every passing week: no vendor is issuing fixes for whatever vulnerabilities get discovered from here forward, and the documents, workflows, and institutional knowledge sitting on these platforms are exposed the entire time.

What You Needed to Do, Yesterday

If your organization is still running SharePoint Server 2016 or 2019, or still leaning on InfoPath, the honest framing is this: you needed to have started this work before July 14. You didn’t, or you’re still mid-transition, so the priority now is closing the gap as fast as possible, not planning at a comfortable pace. That means:

  • Inventory every SharePoint Server 2016/2019 farm right now, including every document library, team site, and integration built on top of it, not just the intranet landing pages
  • Inventory every InfoPath form still in active use and identify which ones have already silently broken
  • Classify InfoPath forms by business criticality and start replacing the highest-risk ones immediately, not on a future roadmap
  • Decide between SharePoint Online migration and SharePoint Server Subscription Edition based on compliance and data sovereignty needs, and start executing, since every unsupported day compounds risk
  • Stand up Power Apps, Power Automate, or Microsoft Forms replacements for the InfoPath workloads that are actively failing
  • Treat this as a document management and collaboration strategy migration, not just an intranet refresh: your file structure, permissions, and workflows need the same scrutiny as your homepage
  • Bring in outside help if internal bandwidth can’t move fast enough, since the cost of delay is higher than the cost of acceleration at this point

Close the Gap Now

SharePoint Server 2016, 2019, and InfoPath are past their support deadlines, and every day running on them without a plan in motion adds risk to your documents, your workflows, and your compliance posture. This isn’t a project to schedule for next quarter. Compass365 helps organizations migrate their document repositories, intranets, and broader collaboration environments to SharePoint Online, and helps replace outdated InfoPath forms with modern Power Platform solutions built for how teams actually work today.