December, 2009

Starting on December 11, 2009, customers using Office 2003 will not be able to open Office 2003 documents protected with the Rights Management Service (RMS) or save Office 2003 documents protected with RMS. The following error message may be displayed when attempting to Open RMS Documents using Office 2003:

"Unexpected error occurred. Please try again later or contact your system administrator"

This symptom affects Office 2003 products used in conjunction with RMS, including Word 2003, Excel 2003, PowerPoint 2003 and Outlook 2003. It does not affect Office 2007.

We are working to resolve this issue as quickly as possible and we will provide customers a solution as soon as we can.   Any new updates and we will post the information here.

Previously we blogged that starting on December 11, 2009, customers using Office 2003 would not be able to open Office 2003 documents protected with the Active Directory Rights Management Service (AD RMS) or Rights Management Services (RMS). Additionally, customers would not be able to save Office 2003 documents protected with AD RMS/RMS.  A Hotfix package for this issue was released on 12/12/2009. 

In an effort to reach a broader audience, updates are now available through:

Microsoft Update

Download Center

• Office 2003
• Word Viewer
• Excel Viewer

NOTE: Although these updates are available to users of all supported languages, the patch descriptions on the Microsoft Update site and Download Center are in English. Localized versions of these descriptions will be available in early January.

For additional information regarding this issue please explore these Knowledge Base articles:

Office 2003 - KB978551

Word Viewer – KB978558

Excel Viewer – KB978557  

On Tuesday, December 8th, 2009, Microsoft released 6 security updates.  In Office we are addressing 2 security vulnerabilities with 2 security bulletins.  The security updates apply to:

1. Microsoft Office Converters 2002, 2003, and Office Converter Pack, described in security bulletin MS09-067.
2. Microsoft Office Project 2000, 2002, and 2003, described in security bulletin MS09-068.

For complete details, see "Microsoft Security Updates for December 2009" for home users and "Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary for December 2009" for IT professionals.

This month you will notice an update is available for the file validation tool currently running with Office 2010.  We are testing the release mechanism for Office 2010.  With this test we are looking for a smooth transition when Office 2010 becomes publicly available.  Here are the locations for x86 and x64 updates.

There will be a new product category under the Office family today on Microsoft Update.  The new category will be titled Office 2010. The Office 2010 product category will include updates for the following categories: service packs, optional updates, and critical updates or security updates.

For additional information on Office 2010 Products see:  http://www.microsoft.com/office/2010/en/default.aspx. 

 ******Office 2010 updates will be available via WSUS after Office 2010 releases (Office 2010 Beta updates are excluded from deployment via the WSUS distribution channel).*********

Microsoft released two updates to the Outlook 2003 and 2007 Junk Email Filter.

Office Client – KB978551 

Word Viewer – KB978558 

Excel Viewer – KB978557