First, some basics

·         Where can I download SP2? –  You can pop up to Microsoft Update and install the bits

·         Where can I learn about what is in SP2? – Here

·         What files / DLL’s / exes have been changed? – learn about that here

·         Is this an Automatic Update? – Not yet. For the first 90 days (at least the first 90), service packs are made available as a manual download. After 90 days and with a 30 day notice, Service Packs are offered through the Automatic Update channel as a critical update.

Save as ODF 1.1 for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint

OpenDocument 1.1 (ODF) has been added as an available file format for saving documents in Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Doug Mahugh has covered this extensively in his blog, and the ODF 1.1 implementer’s notes have also been available for a while. We first announced our intent to add ODF to the list of supported file types over a year ago. It is great to see this activity come to fruition. I’m especially pleased / surprised at the level of engagement from folks in the ODF community, helping talk through some of the harder parts of the installation. In case you are observing the feature-level impact of saving to ODF in Office, you can visit the links below to learn more about how ODF in Office will behave.

·         PowerPoint: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint/HA102877231033.aspx

·         Excel: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel/HA102877221033.aspx

·         Word: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HA102835631033.aspx

Save as PDF and XPS

Many have seen our announcement a few years back about the addition of PDF and XPS to the list of supported file types of Office 2007. This add-in was originally offered a free download for Office 2007, but SP2 has taken that a step forward and added the bits to the release – no longer a manual download. PDF export functionality will continue to support the creation of PDF 1.5 documents, as well as the ability to generate PDF/A – IS19005 compliant files.

File format converter API

Stephen Peront has an excellent post which illustrates how to use this new interface. The converter API is an extension of our strategy to support file format choice in our products. It enables solution developers to register a new file type for Office, so that it appears in the file type drop-down dialog box for saving documents next to the other 18 that you now get in the box. In a way this will help developers “future proof” Office desktops for new document format standards that may emerge.

Charting Object Model for Word and PowerPoint

An area of pain for users of Office charting has been addressed. A charting Object Model (OM) for Word and PowerPoint has been added to align with the charting support in Excel. Many customers expressed a need to programmatically insert, manipulate the size, and set the formatting of the charts similar to what was provided in the Office 2003 release.  Potentially managing charts programmatically across the three core applications could save workforces thousands of hours of manual labor, depending on the level of complexity and content re-usage taking place. For more information on the changes to the Word and PowerPoint OM’s for Charting, look at this post from David Hale on the Office Developer Content blog.

Cryptographic Agility

Today Vista supports a feature / interface commonly referred to as Cryptographic Next Generation (CNG). Essentially this refers to a capability of Vista which (among other things) allows you to swap crypto providers without breaking your solutions, or perhaps to help future-proof Office 2007 installations about encryption algorithms that may emerge in the future. Office 2007 SP2 has been updated to support the same CNG functionality when installed on Vista. This provides the capability to swap crypto providers for Office documents. This was done in part to help people who desire to implement Suite-B encryption for Office documents. David LeBlanc has written an excellent post describing this addition in depth.

Outlook Performance

One of the most important end user benefits of the SP2 release is the improvement in Outlook performance. I have been dogfooding SP2 for over a month now, and I can attest personally to the life improvement that these changes bring J. I think if you asked the Outlook team, they’d be quick to tell you that SP2 is an update you should install as soon as you can.

Performance improvements that apply to the following general responsiveness areas:

-          Startup: Removes lengthy operations from initial startup

-          Shutdown: Makes Outlook exit predictably despite pending activities.

-          Folder View and Switch: Improves view rendering and folder switching.

-          Calendar improvements: Improves data structures and the reliability of calendar updates

-          Data file checks: Greatly reduces the number of scenarios in which you receive the following error message when you start Outlook: “The data file ' file name ' was not closed properly. This file is being checked for problems. “

Office Service Pack Uninstall Tool

Traditionally, you cannot uninstall Microsoft Office service packs without completely uninstalling the Microsoft Office products. The new Microsoft Service Pack Uninstall Tool for the 2007 Microsoft Office suite (Oarpman.exe) lets you uninstall all the updates for the 2007 Office desktop products that are included in the 2007 Office suite SP2. The Service Pack uninstall tool will be available on the Microsoft Download Center as a free download.

You can use this tool to streamline the removal of all the client updates or individually

-          Sample command line:  “msiexec /i { MSI GUID } MSIPATCHREMOVE={ Patch GUID } /l*vx Path of the log file “

Other enhancements of possible significance

-          SmartArt® Graphics & Charting

o    Better rendering performance

o    Better printing fidelity

o    Fixes issues in the object model to achieve better parity with Office 2003

o    Improves the Edit Points feature. This enables more accurate shape editing and increased interoperability with Office 2003

-          Microsoft Office Access

o    Lets you export reports to Microsoft Office Excel

o    Fixes issues that occur in the import data wizards,

o    Fixes issues in report printing and previewing

o    Fixes issues in macros, in Excel integration, and in date filters

-          Microsoft Office Groove

o    Limits the number of file-sharing workspaces to 64 to make sure that all workspaces can be synchronized. This limit applies only to adding new file-sharing workspaces. If you already have more than 64 file-sharing workspaces, you can continue to use them.

-          Microsoft Office Word

o    Improves the fidelity of .pdf and .xps output

o    Improves Outlook (Word editor) performance

If you want to learn more:

Lots of folks will have lots to say about SP2 – they should; it’s a big release. Here are some links to great blogs that you can read. The table below contains a link to the KB articles & downloads for each product to be released.