Hello all,

as long awaited, here is now the announcement of the 2010 RTM (Release to Manufacturing).

We are also moving into this release with great momentum in the marketplace.  Customers worldwide are very excited about these products, and thanks to an extensive beta program they have contributed significantly to product quality.  The beta programs for Office, SharePoint, Visio, and Project were nothing shy of tremendous, spanning 12 key SKUs in seven languages.  Since releasing the beta in November, we’ve had over 15 million visits to our beta web sites and more than 7.5 million product downloads—over three times the participation of the 2007 beta.  People love the new features and enhancements to Office - as evidenced by 90% of Office 2010 beta users telling us they prefer this release to their current productivity suite, and as further supported by the warm reception these products are receiving from press and analysts. 

“I'm deeply impressed by the many ways Microsoft has improved on the solid foundation of Office 2007.”  - Ed Mendelson, PC Magazine Microsoft Office 2010 Beta

“…Office 2010 rolled into beta and was even better than Office 2007. Seriously, have you used the beta? It rocks out loud. I may spend a lot of time in the cloud, but I also often have to produce publication-ready documents. Besides, have you ever tried to do a mail merge in Google Docs? Of course you haven’t, because you can’t.”  - Chris Dawson, ZDNet Can I be a Windows, Apple, Linux, and Google guy all at once?

"Visual Studio 2010 includes tools for SharePoint development that will make it much more easy for developers to create and deploy SharePoint applications. Now Visual Studio developers can target SharePoint as a platform." - Mike Gualtieri, Forrester  Microsoft to offer second beta for Visual Studio 2010

"It is not just line-of-business apps, CRM or BI that can be built; it is a way to connect to everything.” - Joel Oleson - Quest Software Platform theme emerges with SharePoint 2010

Schedules and Timelines in 2010:

• There is a pre-order program available for those who want to be first on the list http://store.microsoft.com/OfficePreorder
• April 22 - MSDN and TechNet Subscriber downloads will be available.
• April 27 – Volume License (VL) customers with an existing Software Assurance (SA) license will be able to download RTM versions of the products in English via the Volume License Service Center (VLSC).
• May 1 – Volume License customers without a SA license will be able to purchase Office, SharePoint, Visio, and Project through Volume Licensing.
• May 12 – Official Launch!  Office 2010 and related products will be available for business customers.
• June – Office 2010 and related products will be generally available for all customers at retail.
• September – All fully localized language SKUs are expected to be available for download by end of September.

Supportability and incidents:

• We do not support any cases based on Pre-RTM or Beta bits. Only customers from the our technology adoption program (TAP), rapid deployment program (RDP) and technical beta program will gain support through special channels as already provided since attending the program!
• We do not support MSDN or TechNet RTM bits on productive usage!
• We start supporting incidents/Issues on cases beginning  with the fresh and clean installed RTM bits appropriate to its availability, soonest on April 27th.
• Any Build level is unsupported from 14.0.4514.xxxx – 14.0.4762.xxxx

Build Version                       Supported
14.0.4514.1004                  No, (Beta)
14.0.4536.1000                  No, (public Beta 2)
14.0.4763.1000                  YES, (RTM Build)

How to see the build version? 

Option 1: Check Databases:

Each Sharepoint database (configdb, ssp db, contentdb has a SQL table “Versions”.



Here you can see the patching story of this SharePoint farm.

Option 2: check installed binaries: (here you see the current installed Version)

Navigate to the 14-Hive/ISAPI-Folder: open Microsoft.SharePoint.dll



This screenshot display a BETA version -> Not supported!

Migrations:

• There is no supported path to migrate/Upgrade existing SharePoint 2010 Beta-, RC-, or any other pre-RTM bits except on the TAP/RDP program members.
• If you are on any other SharePoint version prior to MOSS 2007 you have to migrate/upgrade up to MOSS 2007 before you can migrate/upgrade to SPS 2010!
  • If you are on SharePoint Portal server 2003, you have to upgrade first to MOSS 2007 and then to SPS 2010 RTM
  • If you are on any other Version prior to SharePoint Portal Server 2003, you have to go via the full version path via each step.
• Examples:
  • Not Supported Patch-History:   SPS2003 -> MOSS2007 -> SP2010 BETA -> SP2010 RTM  ( this means the whole FARM is not supported because the upgrade from SP2010 Beta to SP2010 RTM is not supported!)
  • Supported Patch-History:   SPS2003 -> MOSS2007 -> … -> MOSS2007 SP1 -> … -> MOSS2007 SP2 -> SP2010 RTM
• General migration/upgrade path from MOSS2007 SP2 to SP2010:  Currently there is only the in-place or database attach approach upgrade relevant.
  But for more information on this, please check the special guide lines on my posts here: SharePoint 2010 Resource Guide

Additional Links and Information:

Microsoft Office 2010 Engineering
Office Sustained Engineering
Office 2010 Beta
SharePoint Designer 2010
Business Launch (on May 12)
pre-order Office 2010
Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog
SharePoint 2010 Developer Center
FAQ:SharePoint 2010 RTM Installation>

For further resources, take a look at:

- SharePoint 2010 Website - to view SharePoint 2010 in action

- SharePoint 2010 forum- for SharePoint 2010 questions

- SharePoint 2010 PressPass- for the SPC 2009 keynote video, a Q&A with Jeff Teper, and more

- SharePoint 2010 Developer Center - for developer info

- http://www.mssharepointitpro.com - for IT Pro info

- http://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint - for more SharePoint information

All 2010 related Links inside this blog:  http://blogs.technet.com/b/steve_chen/archive/tags/sps2010+_2800_sharepoint+2010_2900_/

Greets,
Steve Chen, SharePoint Support Engineer, GTSC EMEA - Germany