What is the typical shelf life of a version of Power BI Desktop

[paulcp]

I work in the UK government sector where we are planning to deploy Power BI Desktop. Our IT and networking services are outsourced and the outsourcing company has informed us that they will charge us for each Citrix build of Power BI Desktop even though the product itself is free. When installing PBIDesktop, there is a message stating "At some point in the future, old versions of Power BI Desktop will stop working. We will notify you at least 30 days prior to your version's expiration date". 

Can someone please tell us how frequently old versions will cease to work, in other words, what is the typical shelf-life of a version of Power BI Desktop?

Many thanks.

[ankitpatira]

@paulcp We have seen power bi desktop getting updated on monthly basis. 

[paulcp]

Thanks for responding to my query. My understanding is that if you ignore these monthly (someone else said six-weekly) updates, PBI Desktop will carry on working until one day after several updates have been ignored it will stop working or some features will stop working. Have you experienced this or heard about this at all?

Thanks in advance.

[Talvien · Accepted solution]

As long as you have the installation file of a version you can use it as long as you like, there is no auto-update function.

On the Power BI website you will always just get the newest version which can be a pain in the neck. So keep your installtion files. I guess it could happen that the online service might not be compatible with older versions of Power BI Desktop uploads in the future, but the Power BI Desktop files should work as long as you have the version it was created with.

Nevertheless I would recommend to update frequently since MS implements some jucy functionalities every month.

[paulcp]

Thanks for that clear explanation. Much appreciated!