Office Resource Kit Blog

What’s new for IT professionals in Office 2010

Office 2010 provides new features and improvements that help IT administrators configure, validate, deploy, and protect their Office installations. The following sections discuss changes in these areas:

·        Licensing and volume activation

·        Office 2010 64-bit editions

·        Security changes

·        Office Customization Tool changes

Licensing and volume activation

Microsoft includes product activation technologies in the following products sold through the Volume Licensing channel: Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, and now Office 2010. Product activation is verification with the manufacturer to confirm that software is genuine and that its product key is not compromised. Activation establishes a relationship between the software's product key and a particular installation of that software on a device.

Activation types include retail, volume, and OEM, and most require interactive steps by the user or IT professional, such as entering a product key from the packaging, or contacting a networked server or telephone service center. Activation technologies and tools vary according to the different channels for the software — retail, volume, and OEM.

The Microsoft policy requires the activation of all editions of Office 2010. This includes those obtained through a Volume Licensing program. This requirement applies to Office 2010 running on both physical computers and virtual machines.

You can use the following methods to activate Office 2010 with Office Activation Technologies:

·        Key Management Service (KMS). KMS uses a KMS host key to activate a KMS host computer and establish a local activation service in your environment. Office 2010 connects to the local KMS host for activation.

·        Multiple Activation Key (MAK). With a MAK, clients activate Office 2010 online with the Microsoft hosted activation servers or by telephone

·        A combination of KMS and MAK.

To learn about Office Activation Technologies, see Overview of volume activation for Office 2010 and Volume activation quick start guide for Office 2010 in the Office 2010 Beta Resource Kit.

Office 2010 64-bit editions

Processors that are 64-bit are quickly becoming the standard for systems ranging from servers to desktop computers. The 64-bit systems can use more virtual and physical memory than 32-bit processors. This lets users work with much larger data sets than they could previously, to analyze and solve large computational problems. Office 2010 introduces native 64-bit versions of Office products to take advantage of the additional capacity provided by 64-bit processors. This additional capacity is only needed by Office users who require Excel spreadsheets that are larger than 2 GB, for example. The 32-bit version of Office 2010 provides the same functionality and is also compatible with 32-bit add-ins. This is why Office 2010 will install the 32-bit version by default.

For information about the supported operating systems, supported scenarios, setup process, and deployment considerations for 64-bit Office 2010 clients, see 64-bit editions of Office 2010 in the Office 2010 Beta Resource Kit.

Security changes

Several new security controls in Office 2010 make it easier for IT professionals to build a robust defense against threats without diminishing information worker productivity. Five of the new controls provide countermeasures for hardening and reducing the attack surface and mitigating exploits. These include the following:

·        Data Execution Prevention (DEP) support for Office applications   A hardware and software technology that helps harden the attack surface by preventing the execution of viruses and worms that exploit buffer overflow vulnerabilities.

·        Office file validation   An Office software component that helps reduce the attack surface by scanning files for file format (file fuzzing) exploits before the files are opened by an application.

·        Expanded file block settings   A suite of Group Policy settings that helps reduce the attack surface by providing more specific control over the kinds of files an applications can access.

·        Office ActiveX kill bit   An Office feature that administrators can use to prevent specific ActiveX controls from running within Office applications.

·        Protected view   A sandbox environment that helps mitigate attacks by enabling users to preview untrusted or potentially harmful files in a secure viewer.

In addition to these new controls, Office 2010 provides several security enhancements that further harden the attack surface by helping to ensure the integrity and confidentiality of data. This includes the following:

·        Cryptographic agility for Microsoft Excel 2010, Microsoft PowerPoint 2010, and Microsoft Word 2010.

·        Trusted time stamping support for digital signatures.

·        Domain-based password complexity checking and enforcement.

·        Encryption strengthening enhancements.

·        Improvements to the password to modify feature.

·        Integrity checking of encrypted files.

Office 2010 also provides several security improvements that have a direct affect on information worker productivity. Improvements in the message bar user interface, a trust model that remembers users’ trust decisions, Trust Center user interface settings, and single identity management are some examples of new features that help make security decisions and actions less intrusive to information workers. In addition, many of the new and enhanced security controls can be managed through Group Policy settings. This makes it easier for you to enforce and maintain your organization’s security architecture.

Office Customization Tool changes

The Office Customization Tool (OCT) is the main customization tool that is used to customize an installation of Microsoft Office 2010 (and the 2007 Microsoft Office system). The OCT is part of the Setup program and is the recommended tool for most customizations, and is available only with volume licensed versions of Office 2010 and the 2007 Office system. You run the OCT by typing setup.exe /admin at the command line.

For more information about the OCT, see Office Customization Tool in Office 2010 in the Office 2010 Beta Resource Kit.

The Office 2010 release provides the following new features:

·        Two architecture-specific versions of the OCT, one for 32-bit Office 2010 and one for 64-bit Office 2010. The 64-bit version of the OCT supports 64-bit client editions of Office 2010, and provides the same user interface, capabilities, and OPA settings as the 32-bit version. The OCT files are located in the Admin folder under the x86 (32-bit) and x64 (64-bit) folders, respectively. For information about 64-bit Office 2010, see 64-bit editions of Office 2010 in the Office 2010 Beta Resource Kit.

·        Import feature that lets administrators import 32-bit OCT customization (MSP) updates into the 64-bit version of the OCT and 64-bit MSP updates into the 32-bit version of the OCT. This allows administrators of mixed environments (32-bit and 64-bit) to do the Setup customizations one time. For more information, see Import an Office 2010 Setup customization file in the Office 2010 Beta Resource Kit.

·        Support for adding multiple Outlook e-mail accounts.

For information about application-specific changes in Office 2010, see the Product and feature changes in Office 2010 articles in the Office 2010 Beta Resource Kit.

Technical diagrams available for Office 2010

Wouldn’t you prefer looking at a nice poster over reading a wall of text?  We have some posters that can help you plan for your Office 2010 deployment.   

These include:

·        Deployment options for Office 2010

·        Deploy Multilanguage packs for Office 2010

·        64-bit client installation of Office 2010

·        Virtualization architecture overview

For file type options, poster detail and download links, see Technical diagrams for Office 2010 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=178428).

Keep in mind these posters are Beta and will be updated with the release of Office 2010.   If you have feedback, please post it in the Office 2010 Beta forum (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=178427).

And if you haven’t already, download the Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 Beta today (http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9695128).

Cheers and happy Thanksgiving!

-        Cat

How to import Outlook Data Files (.pst) – the files formally known as Personal Folder Files (.PST)

If you upgrade from Outlook 2007 to Outlook 2010, your .pst files will auto-magically be imported into your Outlook profile.  You don’t need to do anything (beyond upgrading) to get them there.

If you want to do a clean install where you uninstall Outlook and then install Outlook 2010, you may need to manually import your .pst files into your profile.  As with Outlook 2007, it’s easy to do in Outlook 2010 but the commands to do it are in a different spot.

Here is one way to do it in Outlook 2010 Beta:

1.       In Outlook 2010, click the File tab.

2.       Click Open and then click Open Outlook Data File.

3.       Navigate to the .pst file to import and then click Ok.

You’re done! 

If you or your organization isn’t a fan of .pst files, check out the Personal Archive feature with Exchange Server 2010 and Outlook 2010.  As with .pst files, the Personal Archive feature does not affect user’s primary mailbox size.  The difference is that the e-mail archive folders are stored on the Exchange server and can only be accessed while the user is connected to the internet. Users can access their Personal Archive just like a .pst file in Outlook 2010.  Because archived email is stored on the Exchange server users can access it from OWA as well.  For more information about the Personal Archive in Exchange 2010, see Understanding Personal Archive (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=178303).

You can also disable .pst files in your organization.  In Planning for Messaging Records Management 2010 Help (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=178295), see the sections “Limiting Access to PST Files” and “Configure user's systems to prevent moving or copying Exchange mailbox data to PST files”.

And while I’m on the Exchange Server 2010 tangent, you should definitely check out the new features available if you haven’t already.  See Microsoft Exchange 2010 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=163579) and What's New in Exchange Server 2010 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkId=164425).

TechNet Office 2010 Beta documentation

Yes, this is why we’ve been so quiet lately – we haven’t been napping all these months!  As you may have noticed from the previous post (and tweets), Office 2010 (Beta) content is now on TechNet.  More content will be published over the next weeks and months. 

Here are the new sites to check out:

·         Office 2010 (Beta) on TechNet: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/ee263913.aspx

·         Getting Started with Office 2010 (Beta): http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/ee691942.aspx

·         Office 2010 Beta Resource Kit: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc303401(office.14).aspx

·         Office 2010 Forums: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/category/office2010

Here is a highlight of what is included in the Office 2010 Beta Resource Kit:

• Product evaluation and getting started with Office 2010 Beta    Provides an overview of Office 2010, and includes information about the Setup architecture, 64-bit Office 2010, system requirements, getting started information, and product comparisons.
• Planning the deployment of Office 2010 Beta   Provides information about assessing your current environment, planning for desktop configurations, security, and applications including Microsoft Access 2010, Microsoft Excel 2010, Microsoft Outlook 2010, and Microsoft Project 2010. It also provides planning information for migration and upgrading from previous versions of Office, as well as planning for virtualization and Terminal Services.
• Configuration and deployment of Office 2010 Beta   Provides how-to information for specific deployment tasks, such as customizing the installation, and installing Office 2010 on users' computers. It also provides information about the new licensing options for Office 2010, including instructions for configuring the infrastructure for volume licensing and activation.
• Maintaining and updating Office 2010 Beta   Provides information about changing users' configurations after installing Office 2010.
• Security and protection for Office 2010 Beta   Provides information new security controls in Office 2010, which make it easier for IT professionals to build a robust defense against threats while maintaining information worker productivity.
• Troubleshooting for Office 2010 Beta   Provides suggested solutions to issues you might encounter during a deployment of Office 2010.
• Technical reference for Office 2010 Beta   Provides technical details related to Office 2010 Setup properties and command-line options, and describes the Office Customization Tool and Config.xml file.

The ORK team will be monitoring the Office 2010 Forums. If you have specific (constructive) comments or suggestions on an article in the ORK 2010 library or about the ORK 2010 library overall, please post your comments to the most appropriate Office 2010 Forum. We would be most appreciative!

Keep an eye on this Blog!  Over the next few weeks and months, the ORK team will be featuring highlights of new articles we’ve published for Office 2010.  Happy Office 2010 Beta evaluating!

Download the Office 2010 Beta today: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9695128

Gracias, merci and ciao!

- Cat

Office 2010 public beta announcement

Here is the official word folks!

Today, Microsoft is releasing the public beta of

• Office 2010, SharePoint Server 2010, Visio 2010, Project 2010, and Office Web Apps for business customers.  Millions of people can download the beta at www.microsoft.com/2010 (or from TechNet: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9695128).
• Office Mobile 2010 has also reached the public beta milestone and is now available on the Windows Mobile Marketplace for Windows Mobile 6.5 phones.

As part of the beta Microsoft is unveiling several new capabilities, including:

• The Outlook Social Connector, a new feature which brings communications history, business and social networking feeds into the Outlook experience.  
• At beta The Outlook Social Connector will support SharePoint social networking and support Windows Live at launch.
• Microsoft is also announcing that Linked-in and Facebook will be the among the first third-party social networking sites that have providers for the Outlook Social Connector.
• Microsoft also released the Outlook Social Connector SDK for developers to build connectors to third party social networks. 
• Technology and design advancements, including deeper integration between Office 2010 and Office Web applications, improved navigation, visual design and icon updates, a new Office logo and increased performance and stability. 

As a result of the continued partnership with SAP, Microsoft also announced intent to deliver Duet Enterprise for Microsoft SharePoint and SAP, which will expand the long standing Duet partnership. The joint solution from SAP and Microsoft will integrate SAP applications with SharePoint 2010 and provide complete flexibility and extensibility to compose solutions that blend the worlds of process and collaboration. The solution is planned to be released in the H2 2010.

Download the Office 2010 Beta today: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9695128

Office 2010 Blog post announcing the Beta: http://blogs.technet.com/office2010/archive/2009/11/16/announcing-office-2010-beta-availability.aspx

For more information, check out Office 2010 (Beta) on TechNet at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/ee263913.aspx.

Security updates for November 2009

On Tuesday, November 10^th, 2009, Microsoft released security updates for Microsoft Office products to address 11 security vulnerabilities in two security bulletins. The security updates apply to the following Office products:

·         Microsoft Office Excel 2002, Excel 2003, Excel 2007, Excel Viewer 2003, Excel Viewer, and the 2007 Microsoft Office System, as described in security bulletin MS09-067, Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office Excel Could Allow Remote Code Execution (972652).

·         Microsoft Office Word 2002, Word 2003, and Word Viewer 2003, as described in security bulletin MS09-068, Vulnerability in Microsoft Office Word Could Allow Remote Code Execution (976307).

For complete details, see the following summaries:

·         Microsoft Security Updates for November 2009 for home users.

·         Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary for November 2009 for IT professionals.

Microsoft Outlook Junk Email Filter updates

Microsoft also released two updates to the Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007 Junk Email Filter. These updates provide a more current definition of which e-mail messages should be considered junk e-mail.

Security updates for October 2009

On Tuesday, October 13th, 2009, Microsoft released security updates for Microsoft Office products to address 11 security vulnerabilities in two security bulletins. The security updates apply to the following Office products:

·         Microsoft Office XP, Office 2003, and the 2007 Microsoft Office system. The security updates also apply to Microsoft Office Outlook 2002, Outlook 2003, and Outlook 2007; and Microsoft Office Visio Viewer 2007, as described in security bulletin MS09-060, "Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Active Template Library (ATL) ActiveX Controls for Microsoft Office Could Allow Remote Code Execution."

For information about known issues that customers may experience when installing this security update and for information about recommended solutions for these issues, see Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 973965, “MS09-060: Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Active Template Library (ATL) ActiveX Controls for Microsoft Office could allow remote code execution.”

·         Microsoft Office XP, Office 2003, the 2007 Microsoft Office system, and Microsoft Visio 2002, as described in security bulletin MS09-062, “Vulnerabilities in GDI+ Could Allow Remote Code Execution.”

For information about known issues that customers may experience when installing this security update and for information about recommended solutions for these issues, see Knowledge Base Article 957488, “MS09-062: Vulnerabilities in GDI+ could allow remote code execution.”

For complete details, see the following summaries:

·         Microsoft Security Updates for October 2009 for home users

·         Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary for October 2009 for IT professionals.

As described in security bulletin MS09-060, Microsoft recommends that all users of Microsoft Visio Viewer 2002 and Visio Viewer 2003 upgrade to the latest version of Visio Viewer 2007 to address this security vulnerability.  Users who are unable to upgrade should apply the update from MS09-034, “Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (972260).” This Internet Explorer update mitigates the attack vector for affected Visio Viewer platforms. Users may also install the cumulative security update for Internet Explorer. After you install MS09-060, you will need to upgrade to Visio Viewer 2007 and install the update described in this article to continue using Visio Viewer.

 Note:

·         The Security Updates for Microsoft Office XP, Office 2003 and the 2007 Office system described in MS09-060 do not fix a security vulnerability. The updates resolve a problem that occurs after you install the security updates for Microsoft Office Outlook 2002, Outlook 2003, or Outlook 2007 that are described in security bulletin MS09-060. The security updates for Outlook modify the CLSID (class identifier) of the Outlook View Control. This causes certain solutions based on Forms 2.0 that use the Outlook View Control to stop working, such as Business Contact Manager. The Security Updates for Microsoft Office XP, Office 2003, and the 2007 Office system update Forms 2.0 to work properly after the security updates to Outlook are installed.

·         PowerPoint Viewer 2003 has left support as of October 8th, 2009. To continue receiving updates, please install PowerPoint Viewer 2007.

Microsoft Outlook Junk Email Filter updates

Microsoft also released two updates to the Microsoft Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007 Junk Email Filter. These updates provide a more current definition of which e-mail messages should be considered junk e-mail.

For the latest information about Office updates, see the Office Sustained Engineering blog.

Where is the Office 2000 SR-1 administrator updates (O2KSR1aDL.exe)?

The Office 2000 SR-1 administrator updates (O2KSR1aDL.exe) is no longer available on the Microsoft Download Center.  This is because Office 2000 extended support expired July 2009:

http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/Default.aspx?p1=2484

If you really need this file, we suggest checking in with one of the community newsgroup to see if someone there can help you out.  Sorry for the inconvenience!

- Cat

Updates for Outlook Junk E-mail Filters September 2009

On September 2nd, 2009, Microsoft released updates to the Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 and Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 Junk E-mail Filters.  The updates provide the Junk E-mail Filter in Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007 with a more current definition of which e-mail messages should be considered junk e-mail.

Update for Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 Junk Email Filter (KB973515) (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=63BF0D12-165B-4FEE-AC96-9BAD91DDB264&displaylang=en)

Update for Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 Junk Email Filter (KB973514) (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=1586DC82-3422-4801-874B-E6C38868945C&displaylang=en)

No Office security updates were released for September.

2007 Office system: Resource Centers for IT administrators

If you are an IT administrator who manages Office desktops in your organization, you will find consolidated resources in the following 2007 Office Resource Centers:

Deployment - Learn about the 2007 Office system changes in Setup architecture, language-neutral design, and customization model, and find centralized resources for preparing for and deploying the 2007 Office system (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/desktop/bb736744.aspx).

Security - Learn about deployment, configuration, and management of security and privacy settings in the 2007 Office system (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/desktop/cc948708.aspx).

User Interface - Help users learn about the Microsoft Office Fluent User Interface and find resources for customizing the Office Fluent UI (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/desktop/bb736211.aspx).

Security updates for August 2009

·         Update for Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 Junk Email Filter (KB972691) (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=2b832213-f733-4e90-85ea-a086c671f891)

Deploy different Microsoft Office 2007 suites (step-by-step)

We recently published a new article describing the options available to deploy different Microsoft Office 2007 suites to the same computer - including procedural information for each option: side-by-side and uninstall-install. Although this process might not be needed by most organizations, it can be appropriate in some scenarios. For example, departments in an organization that currently have Microsoft Office Standard 2007 installed on their computers might now need applications available in Microsoft Office Professional 2007, such as Microsoft Office Access 2007.

As always we would appreciate hearing back from you. For example, was this article helpful? Did it provide all the information you needed? Are there any suggestions for improvement?

This article is in the 2007 Office Resource Kit on TechNet: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee335989.aspx

Security updates for July 2009

2007 Office ribbon and toolbar learning resources

The Office team has just launched the Office 2007 ribbon and toolbar portal (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/FX102774021033.aspx) to help users discover the learning resources and tools available for the ribbon and toolbar. The portal highlights features in an easy-to-scan format by products and includes online demos, videos, training courses, help articles, and interactive guides for Excel, PowerPoint, and Word. Access and Outlook will be added soon as well. Let us know what you think.

Office 2007 installed on retail computers is usually a trial version

From time to time, we receive comments on our articles asking a variant of the question, “Where is my product key?” These comments are typically from retail customers whose trial version of Office 2007 has expired and is now asking them for a product key to continue using it. Many customers try the product key included on the bottom of their computer, only to find out that it’s the product key for the operating system, not for Office 2007.

Retail customers should keep in mind that when you buy a computer from a department or online store, you are most likely receiving a trial version of Office 2007, not the full retail version. If you aren’t sure, please ask your sales representative! (Retail computers usually have a full, licensed version of the operating system, however.)

Also keep in mind that trial versions of Office 2007 do not install Outlook 2007.

If you have a trial version of Office 2007 that has expired, you have the option to purchase the full, licensed software from the Microsoft Web site, Web sites of authorized vendors, or from any authorized retail store. You can purchase the software on CD or as a download.

For more information about the trial versions of Office that are eligible for conversion to the full, licensed version and for instructions on activating a full, licensed version of Office 2007, see the KB article How to convert a trial version of a 2007 Office suite or program to a full retail perpetual license version.