Office Sustained Engineering

November 2009 Update Release

On Tuesday, November 10th, 2009, Microsoft released 6 security updates.  In Office we are addressing 11 security vulnerabilities with 2 security bulletins.  The security updates apply to:

• Microsoft Office Excel 2002, 2003, 2007, Excel Viewer 2003, Excel Viewer, and the 2007 Microsoft Office System, described in security bulletin MS09-067.
• Microsoft Office Word 2002, 2003, and Word Viewer 2003 as described in security bulletin MS09-068.

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

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

Posted by The Microsoft Office Sustained Engineering Team | (Comments Off)

Filed under: Security, Releases

October 2009 Update Release

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

·         Microsoft Office XP, 2003, and 2007, Microsoft Office Outlook 2002, 2003 and 2007, and Microsoft Office Visio Viewer 2007, as described in security bulletin MS09-060.

·         Microsoft Office XP, 2003, and 2007, and Microsoft Visio 2002, as described in security bulletin MS09-062.

For complete details, see "Microsoft Security Updates for October 2009" for home users and "Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary for October 2009" for IT professionals. Microsoft also released two updates to the Outlook 2003 and 2007 Junk Email Filter.

 

As described in security bulletin MS09-060, Microsoft recommends all users of 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.  This Internet Explorer update mitigates the attack vector for affected Visio Viewer platforms.  Users may also install the cumulative security update for Internet Explorer (MS09-0xx), which provides kill bits for these controls. 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.

 

The Security Updates for Microsoft Office XP, 2003 and 2007 described in MS09-060 do not fix a security vulnerability. Instead, they resolve a problem that occurs after you install the Security Updates for Microsoft Office Outlook 2002, 2003 or 2007 described in this bulletin. The Security Updates for Outlook modify the CLSID 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, 2003 and 2007 update Forms 2.0 to work properly after the Security Updates to Outlook are installed.

 

Note: PowerPoint Viewer 2003 has left support as of today. To continue receiving updates, please install PowerPoint Viewer 2007.

September 2009 Update Release

On Tuesday, September 8^th, 2009, Microsoft released updates to the Outlook 2003 and 2007 Junk Email Filters. No security updates for Office were released.

Office Genuine Advantage Update Released

On Tuesday August 25th, 2009, Microsoft released an important/high priority non-security update for Office called Office Genuine Advantage Notifications to assist Microsoft’s efforts to reduce piracy. This update applies to Office XP, 2003 and 2007 suites and applications, and helps users confirm that the copy of Office that is installed on a computer is genuine and correctly licensed. For complete details on this update see “Description of the Office Genuine Advantage Notifications application.”

 

This update can be obtained using Microsoft Update beginning at 10:00 am PST.

 

For more information about the ways Microsoft protects customers and partners from the risks of software piracy:

 

·         Microsoft on the Issues

·         “Microsoft’s Software Protection Platform: Protecting Software and Customers from Counterfeiters”

·         Genuine Microsoft Software

·         How to Tell

Service Pack 2 for 2007 Microsoft Office system begins distribution via Automatic Update the week of September 21, 2009

This is advance notice that we will start providing SP2 for the 2007 Microsoft Office system via Microsoft Update’s Automatic Update the week of September 21, 2009. This continues our commitment to providing a minimum of 30 days notice prior to distributing service packs via this method. The availability will happen gradually over time, completing in early February. This is in response to customer requests as well as to ensure that our service infrastructure can meet the demand for the service pack.

August 2009 Update Release

On Tuesday, August 11th, 2009, Microsoft released three security updates for Office Web Components addressing four security vulnerabilities. The security updates apply to Microsoft Office 2000, XP, and 2003 Web Components, as described in security bulletin MS09-043. These updates address the issue discussed in security advisory 973472. For complete details, see "Microsoft Security Updates for August 2009" for home users and "Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary for August 2009" for IT professionals.

 

As previously discussed in the post Office Web Components Lifecycle, there are three versions of Office Web Components, and each version was also released as part of the next version of Office. So Office 2000 Web Components released both as part of Office 2000 and part of Office XP. The following table maps the different versions of Office Web Components to the updates needed for those versions:

OWC Version	From Product	Patch Needed
2000	Office XP	KB947320
XP (2002)	Office XP, web download	KB947320
XP (2002)	Office 2003	KB947319
2003	Office 2003, web download (versions 1-3)	KB947319
2003	Web download (version 4), Project Server 2007*, SQL Server 2008**	KB947318

*Project Server 2007 includes the installation package for the Office 2003 Web Components so that clients who connect to the server can automatically install the Office Web Components. Project Server installations are not vulnerable to the security vulnerability and do not need to install any updates.

**SQL Server 2008 includes  the installation package for the Office 2003 Web Components for use in SQL Server client-side functionality. Most server installations will not contain Office Web Components and will not need to be updated.

Note: Office 2000 is no longer in support.

 

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

July 2009 Update Release

On Tuesday, July 14th, 2009, Microsoft released one security updates for Office addressing a single security vulnerability. The security update applies to Microsoft Office Publisher 2007, as described in security bulletin MS09-030. For complete details, see "Microsoft Security Updates for July 2009" for home users and "Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary for July 2009" for IT professionals. Microsoft also released two updates to the Outlook 2003 and 2007 Junk Email Filter.

 

As a reminder, today is the last day of extended support for Microsoft Office 2000. Starting August 1, 2009, Microsoft will discontinue support for Office Update and the Office Update Inventory Tool. To continue getting the latest updates for Microsoft Office products, use Microsoft Update. For more information see the FAQ.

Office Web Components Lifecycle

We often get asked questions about the Office Web Components, commonly known as "OWC", and in particular how the different versions of Office Web Components will be maintained in the future. This post will explain the different versions of Office Web Components that are available and the differences in their lifecycles based on those versions. Office Web Components are most often used to develop custom applications, especially web applications, so if you have never heard of them, this post may not interest you. This post mirrors the content found in Microsoft Knowledge Base article 972129, modified to fit the blog format.

The most important thing to be aware of is that the Office Web Components technology has been deprecated. This means that only security fixes are being made to all versions of OWC, and no future versions of OWC will be produced. If you are using OWC, you should begin migrating to a new technology as soon as possible. For more information, see the blog post "Office Web Components Roadmap". Note that the lifecycle dates given in that blog post are less detailed than those described here. For more information on the Microsoft Support Lifecycle policy, see the Microsoft Support Lifecycle website.

Before we consider the OWC lifecycle, we need to define the different versions of OWC. There have been three versions of Office Web Components: Office 2000 Web Components, Office XP Web Components, and Office 2003 Web Components. Each version released as a web download and on the CDs of the corresponding version of Office. In addition, each version was re-released along with the next version of Office. So there is a version of Office 2000 Web Components on the Office XP CDs and a version of Office XP Web Components on the Office 2003 CDs. The Office 2003 Web Components were not released on Office 2007 CDs, but they were re-released to the web and included with Project Server 2007. Although these re-releases carry the same names and functionality as the original release, for technical reasons they are considered separate products for patching purposes.

This is very important when we consider the product lifecycles for OWC. Each version of OWC, including the re-releases, is supported according to the version of Office with which it shipped. So the version of Office 2000 Web Components that shipped with Office 2000 is in extended support until Office 2000 leaves extended support on July 14^th, 2009, but the version of Office 2000 Web Components that shipped with Office XP is in extended support until Office XP leaves extended support on 7/12/2011. This same rule applies to the other versions of OWC as well. Here are the support milestone dates and release locations for all of the different versions of OWC:

OWC Version	Release Location	Mainstream Support Ends	Extended Support Ends
OWC 2000 (Office 2000 version)	Office 2000 CD, web	Mainstream support has ended.	7/14/2009
OWC 2000 (Office XP version)	Office XP CD	Mainstream support has ended.	7/12/2011
OWC XP (Office XP version)	Office XP CD, web	Mainstream support has ended.	7/12/2011
OWC XP (Office 2003 version)	Office 2003 CD	Mainstream support has ended.	4/8/2014
OWC 2003 (Office 2003 version)	Office 2003 CD, web (versions 1-3)	Mainstream support has ended.	4/8/2014
OWC 2003 (Office 2007 version)	Project Server 2007 CD, web (version 4)	4/10/2012	4/11/2017

Edit on 8/3/2009: Corrected a typo that incorrectly indicated that the Office 2003 Web Components were not released on Office 2003 CDs. The Office 2003 Web Components were released on Office 2003 CDs but were not released on Office 2007 CDs.

 

 

June 2009 Update Release

 

On Tuesday, June 9th, 2009, Microsoft released 17 security updates for Office in 3 bulletins addressing 11 security vulnerabilities. The security updates apply to the following products:

• Microsoft Office Excel 2000, 2002, 2003, 2007, Excel Viewer 2003, Excel Viewer, the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack, the 2007 Microsoft Office System, and Excel Services in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (32 bit, 64 bit), as described in security bulletin MS09-021.
• Microsoft Office Word 2000, 2002, 2003, 2007, Word Viewer 2003, the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack, and the 2007 Microsoft Office System, as described in security bulletin MS09-027.
• Microsoft Office 2000, XP, and 2007, as described in security bulletin MS09-024.

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

Microsoft also released two updates to the Outlook 2003 and 2007 Junk Email Filter and an update to Outlook. The update to Outlook resolves an issue that occurs when you attempt to save after you edit a meeting request with Service Pack 2 installed. If certain fields, such as the list of meeting attendees, are edited, you will be prompted to either save and notify the meeting attendees or not save. If you choose not to save, your changes are lost. This update resolves that issue. The update, which will install successfully if either Service Pack 1 or Service Pack 2 is installed, also delivers many of the Outlook performance enhancements in Service Pack 2 to users who are not yet ready to install the service pack.

Starting August 1, 2009, Microsoft will discontinue support for Office Update and the Office Update Inventory Tool. To continue getting the latest updates for Microsoft Office products, use Microsoft Update. For more information see the FAQ. 

Office 2000 and Office Update Site to Retire

As a reminder, Microsoft Office 2000 leaves extended support on July 14, 2009.  Office 2000 patches published on or before July 14, 2009 will remain on the Download Center. For more information, please see the Office 2000 Lifecycle policy.

 

Starting August 1, 2009, Microsoft will discontinue support for the Office Update website.  Customers can access the equivalent functionality of the Office Update site via Microsoft Update.  This move will allow us to provide a more simplified and consistent experience for users across Microsoft products.  At the same time we will also discontinue the Office Inventory Tool.  The July Office Inventory Tool will remain available for download on the Download Center, but it will not be updated after August 1, 2009.  We recommend that IT admins who use the Office Inventory Tool switch to Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) for deploying Office updates within their corporate network.

 

To continue getting the latest updates for Microsoft Office products, use Microsoft Update.  For more information see the Office Update FAQ.

May 2009 Update Release

 On Tuesday, May 12th, 2009, Microsoft released 7 security updates for Office in 1 bulletin addressing 14 security vulnerabilities. The security updates apply to the following products:

• Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2000, 2002, 2003, 2007, PowerPoint Viewer 2003, PowerPoint Viewer 2007, the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack, and the 2007 Microsoft Office System, as described in security bulletin MS08-017. These updates address the issue described in Microsoft Security Advisory 969136.

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

FAQ concerning Service Pack 2 and the Cumulative Updates for April 2009 for the 2007 Microsoft® Office System and Microsoft Office servers

Many of our customers have questions on the relationship between the set of hotfixes released in the Cumulative Updates (CU) for April 2009 and Service Pack 2 (SP2) for the 2007 Microsoft Office System and Microsoft Office servers. This post will aim at answering those questions.

Cumulative Updates are accumulated sets of hotfixes that the Microsoft Office Sustained Engineering team releases to customers approximately every two months.

If you do not use Cumulative Updates, this blog will probably not be interesting to you. If you are only using SP2, please refer to the following blog post for more details.

Throughout this post, we will use the term "April CU" to refer to the set of hotfixes released in the 2007 Office Cumulative Updates for April 2009.

1. When was SP2 for the 2007 Microsoft Office System and Microsoft Office servers released?  When were the 2007 Office Cumulative Updates for April 2009 released?
SP2 was released on Tuesday April 28th, 2009. Majority of the 2007 Office Cumulative Updates for April 2009 were released on Thursday April 30th, 2009.


2. Where can I obtain SP2 for the 2007 Microsoft Office System and Microsoft Office servers?
Please refer to the following blog post on how to obtain SP2. The corresponding KB article is KB968170.


3. Where can I obtain the 2007 Office Cumulative Updates for April 2009?
Please refer to KB968765 on how to obtain these.


4. What should we install to get the latest updates for all Office products?
For our general customer base, we recommend installing SP2. If you have needed updates in the April CU, we recommend installing both SP2 and the April CU. 


5. What hotfixes are included in SP2?
SP2 will contain every hotfix, security update, infrastructure update, service pack or any other update that was released for Office 2007 through February 2009.  Therefore, all hotfixes that were released in CUs prior to the April CU will be included in SP2.

Please refer to KB968170 for a list of all SP2 packages.
 

6. Will we get the latest updates for an Office product if we install only the April CU and not SP2?
The short answer is no. If you want the latest updates for an Office product we recommend installing both SP2 and the April CU.

To explain further, the April CU includes only a subset of SP2 files, those that were updated due to a hotfix request. On the other hand, the service pack contains product improvements and updates to many other files that are not impacted by a hotfix request. The volume and diversity of fixes in SP2 is much greater than in the April CU. If you install only the April CU, you will not get all the latest updates and the benefit of the service pack.


7. What service packs are required to install the April CU?
To install the April CU, you must have installed either Service Pack 1 (SP1) or SP2. Cumulative updates released in April 2009 and beyond will no longer install on an Office 2007 system without a service pack installed.


8. Which one should we install first between SP2 and the April CU? Do they overwrite each other?
You can install SP2 and the April CU in any order. 

The installer checks to see if the environment already has a newer version of the file it is attempting to replace. If not, it replaces the old file with the newer version; otherwise it skips the install and retains the newer version. The April CU version of a file is newer than the SP2 version of the same file and always takes precedence during an install. Therefore, if you install SP2 followed by April CU, the April CU version of the file replaces the SP2 version. On the other hand, if you install April CU first and then SP2, the April CU version of the file is retained in the environment. The April CU version of a file contains all updates to that file that were in SP2 as well. Hence, installation order does not matter.

Below is an example table for a file (microsoft.sharepoint.portal.dll), in various installation scenarios.

Installation Scenario	Patches Installed	Example File	File Version after installation
SP2 only	coreserverwwsp2.msp	microsoft.sharepoint.portal.dll	12.0.6420.1000 (SP2 version)
April CU only	coreserver.msp	microsoft.sharepoint.portal.dll	12.0.6504.5000 (April CU version)
SP2 + April CU	coreserverwwsp2.msp + coreserver.msp	microsoft.sharepoint.portal.dll	12.0.6504.5000 (April CU version)
April CU + SP2	coreserver.msp + coreserverwwsp2.msp	microsoft.sharepoint.portal.dll	12.0.6504.5000 (April CU version)
SP1 + April CU	Osrchwfewwsp1.msp + coreserver.msp	microsoft.sharepoint.portal.dll	12.0.6504.5000 (April CU version)

For a list of files and file versions in April CU packages, please refer to KB968765 and browse to the KB article for a specific product. 
For a list of files and file versions in SP2 packages, please refer to KB970357 (2007 Microsoft Office System SP2), KB970358 (MOSS SP2) and KB970359 (WSS SP2). 


9. Will server-packages be released for Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) in the April CU? How different will they be from SP2?
Yes, the Microsoft Office Sustained Engineering team began the trend of releasing consolidated packages for server products due to a high volume of customer requests for this type of package. This was first done in the December CU.

In the April CU too, there are 2 cumulative server-packages:
(1) WSS server-package - that contains updates for WSS
(2) MOSS server-package - that contains updates for ECM, Project Server, Search, Excel Services, InfoPath Server and MOSS

The server-packages include all hotfixes for server products that the Microsoft Office Sustained Engineering team has ever released. However, there are files updated in the service pack that have never been updated in a hotfix. In order to get all the latest updates, you need to install SP2 and the April CU server-packages.


10. What do I need to install in my environment to get the latest updates for all server products?
You need to install both SP2 and the April CU server-packages (WSS server-package, MOSS server-package) to get the latest updates for all server products. In general, install the latest service pack and the latest CU server-packages to get the latest updates for server products.


11. If I install both SP2 and the April CU and then uninstall SP2, will I lose updates from the April CU, previous CUs or previous service packs?
The 2007 Microsoft Office suite SP2 is the first service pack to support uninstalling updates for the 2007 Office desktop products. Note you cannot uninstall SP2 for Microsoft Office server products.

No, you will not lose updates from the April CU, previous CUs or previous service packs if you uninstall SP2 for desktop products. For example, there are patches from SP1, December CU and February CU installed in your environment. You install SP2 and the April CU and then decide to uninstall SP2. The installer will uninstall everything that is superseded by SP1 and then reinstall patches from the December, February and April CUs (since applying these patches on top of SP1 is a supported scenario).

Please refer to KB954914 for more detailed information on uninstall for SP2.


12. Is it a supported scenario to install a patch from an older CU on top of a patch from a newer CU?
If you attempt to install a patch from an older CU after applying a patch (for the same set of files) from the newer CU, the installer will prevent installation and give an error that says: "This patch or one that supersedes it is already installed." This holds true for both desktop and server products.

Note that since the updates are cumulative in nature, the newer CU patch always contains the latest version of the set of files and encompasses fixes in those files from the older CU as well.


13. Where can I find a list of all fixes in SP2?
KB968170 includes a list of all SP2 packages and the Knowledge Base (KB) articles corresponding to them. Each KB contains a link to an Excel spreadsheet that lists the issues fixed in that package.

Service Pack 2 for the 2007 Microsoft Office system available today!

We're pleased to announce the release of all languages for Service Pack 2 for the 2007 Microsoft Office System, the 2007 Microsoft Office servers, and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. As promised, this post contains a list of the products that are patched by SP2 with their corresponding knowledge base articles, information on how to obtain the packages, and links to additional SP2 resources. We hope you'll find this to be one of the best service packs produced by the Office team ever!

List of Service Packs Released

Desktop Products

Office Server Products

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

How to Obtain the Service Pack Packages

Links to Additional Resources

List of Service Packs Released

Below you will find a list of the 24 service packs produced by the Office team. The links will take you to the main knowledge base article that describes the changes made to the product or products impacted by that service pack.

Desktop Products

Product	Knowledge Base Article
The 2007 Microsoft Office Suite	953195
Microsoft Office Project 2007	953326
Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007	953292
Microsoft Office Visio 2007	953327
Microsoft Office Access Runtime and Data Connectivity 2007	957262
Calendar Printing Assistant for Microsoft Office Outlook 2007	953329
Microsoft Office InterConnect 2007 – Japanese only	953330
Excel Viewer 2007	953336
PowerPoint Viewer 2007	953332
Visio Viewer 2007	953335
Microsoft Office Proofing Tools 2007	953328
Microsoft Service Pack Uninstall Tool for the 2007 Microsoft Office Suite	954914
Microsoft Office Language Pack 2007	953195
Microsoft Office Project Language Pack 2007	953326
Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer Language Pack 2007	953292
Microsoft Office Visio Language Pack 2007	953327

Office Server Products

Product	Knowledge Base Article
The 2007 Microsoft Office servers	953334
The 2007 Microsoft Office servers, 64-bit edition	953334
The 2007 Microsoft Office servers Language Pack	953334
The 2007 Microsoft Office servers Language Pack, 64-bit edition	953334

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

Product	Knowledge Base Article
Windows SharePoint Services 3.0	953338
Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, 64-bit edition	953338
Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Language Pack	953338
Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Language Pack, 64-bit edition	953338

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 with Service Pack 2 is also available in a single, complete package intended for use in new installations. Links to these packages on the Download Center can be found in knowledge base article 968170.

How to obtain SP2

Recommended Method: Microsoft Update

We recommend using Microsoft Update to apply SP2. Microsoft Update's detection will determine the products and languages you have installed and update your machine all at once.

Optional Method: The Download Center

If you choose not to use Microsoft Update, the SP2 packages are available for download from the Microsoft Download Center. Please click here to find links to the downloads. 

Links to Additional Resources

Many of the Office teams will be discussing the work they did in SP2. You'll find some great information at the locations below.

Access Team Blog

Excel Team Blog

Gray Knowlton's Blog

Groove Team Blog

InfoPath Team Blog

Natural Language Group Team Blog

David LeBlanc (Office Crypto)

Doug Mahugh's Blog (Office Interoperability)

Stephen Peront's Blog (Office Interoperability)

Office Chart Object Model in PowerPoint and Word

John Guin's Blog (OneNote)

Daniel Escapa's Blog (OneNote)

Outlook Team Blog

Project Team Blog

PowerPoint Team Blog

SharePoint Designer Team Blog

SharePoint Designer Support Blog

Service Pack 2 for SharePoint Technologies and Products

SharePoint Team Blog

Visio Team Blog

Word Team Blog

Service Pack 2 for the 2007 Microsoft Office System due to ship April 28th

Last October, we announced the upcoming release of the 2nd service pack for the 2007 Microsoft Office System and the 2007 Microsoft Office servers. Today, we’re happy to provide both a formal release date, and more details on what you should expect to see in SP2.

A fair amount has been said about SP2 already, but there is a lot more to share. We’ll cover the highlights here, but please check back on April 28th when all of our documentation will be published. It is important to remember that the information provided today is by no means a comprehensive list. We worked with the individual teams in Office to come up with a list of changes that they were most proud of and felt would be most beneficial to you, our valued customers.

In addition to the numerous product improvements introduced by SP2, you may also notice that our SP2 documentation has been overhauled.  Gone are the days of the long-winded or too sparse knowledge base articles that do little to describe what’s included in the actual service pack or that include details that may not be what you are looking for.  In their place are what we hope are more user-friendly and informative KB’s.  The technical information still exists, but it has been pulled from the main KB articles and now will live on TechNet.  And, back by popular demand, is the spreadsheet listing individual bugs that were fixed across all of our products.

The Service Pack team would like to express our sincere thanks to the many beta testers who took the time to download, install, test, and provide feedback to us. This was the largest beta we’ve done to date for an Office service pack with thousands of beta testers from over 60 countries. We know your time is extremely valuable, and we very much appreciate all you’ve done. Your efforts have helped to make this a great release!

Don’t forget to come back on April 28th. We’ll have a comprehensive list of everything we’ve released, where you can find it, and links to additional information. A brief note, some of the information posted earlier needed clarification. We have made slight modifications to the information below. 

Very sincerely,

The Office Service Pack team

We’ll start with updates that pertain to multiple products, highlight fixes to the individual desktop applications, and then discuss fixes to the server products.

Changes that impact desktop applications

• Service Pack 2 adds the ability to open, edit and save documents in version 1.1 of the OpenDocument Format for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. These applications now let users save, open, and edit files as OpenDocument Text (*.odt), OpenDocument Spreadsheet (*.ods), and OpenDocument Presentations (*.odp).
• The 2007 Microsoft Office Service Pack 2 is the first service pack to support uninstall of client updates through the Microsoft Service Pack Uninstall Tool for the 2007 Microsoft Office Suite as well as via Windows Installer command line. The Service Pack Uninstall Tool will be available as a separate download.
• The Microsoft Save As PDF or XPS add-in has been built into Office applications in SP2. Users no longer have to download and install the add-in separately.
• When many graphic objects are present performance has been improved.
• In many scenarios, expect increased print fidelity of graphical objects.
• Improved interoperability using standard DrawingML markup to describe the visual properties of the SmartArt graphic. 
• Substantial improvements to Forms-based authentication support in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and SPD.

The 2007 Office Suite SP2 has been tested and is supported for Internet Explorer 8. Windows Vista SP2, Windows Server 2008 SP2, Windows 7 and Windows Server R2 will all be supported upon their release.

Access

• The ability to export reports to Excel has been added.
• Fixes for issues with the import data wizards, report printing and previewing, macros, Excel integration, and date filters.
  Updates to Access Developer Extensions are now included in SP2.

Excel

• The charting mechanism has improved robustness and targeted performance improvements.
• A chart object model has been added to Word and PowerPoint.
• Improved printing of graphical content, especially on PCL printers.

Groove

• Improved form tools.
• Synchronization reliability has been improved.

InfoPath

• Increased compatibility between InfoPath forms and other Microsoft products, such as Groove and Outlook.

OneNote

• SharePoint synchronization has been improved which helps reduce the load on SharePoint servers and produce fewer errors.

Outlook

• Performance in startup, shutdown, view rendering, and folder switch has been improved.
• Calendar updates, search, and RSS are more reliable.
• The object model has been improved.

PowerPoint

• Resaving of files is faster. Several printer-specific problems have been fixed.
• The Microsoft Office Excel Chart Object Model has been more fully integrated.

Project

• The scheduling engine, Active Cache, and Gantt charts all have improvements.
• There is additional reliability with earlier versions of the .mpp format.

Publisher

• Fixes have been made in the following areas: print preview, compatibility with Internet Explorer 8, e-mail on Windows Vista, and saving to the Content library. 

Visio

• Improved compatibility with other Microsoft products in several key scenarios, such as inserting Visio drawings as linked objects in PowerPoint or Word, exporting reports to Excel, and saving drawings as Web pages for browsing in Internet Explorer 8.

Word

• Fidelity of PDF and XPS output has been enhanced compared to the output created through the use of the download. 
• Better integration of the Microsoft Office Excel Chart Object Model.

Changes that impact the server products

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP2 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server SP2 include fixes and enhancements designed to improve performance, availability, and stability in your server farms. SP2 provides the groundwork for future major releases of SharePoint Products and Technologies.

• An STSADM command line that scans your server farm to establish whether it is ready for upgrade to the next version of SharePoint and provides feedback and best practice recommendations on your current environment.
• SP2 offers support for a broader range of Web browsers.

Windows Server 2008 SP2 and Windows Server 2008 R2 will be supported on their release.

Enterprise Content Management (ECM)

• The performance and stability of content deployment and variations feature has been improved.
• A new tool has been added to the STSADM command-line utility that enables a SharePoint administrator to scan sites that use the variations feature for errors.

Excel Services

• SP2 makes it easier to configure Excel Web Access Web Parts on new sites.
• Several rendering, calculation, and security issues have been resolved.
• Some display issues have been addressed.
• Improved compatibility with Mozilla Firefox browsers.

Groove Server

• Improved  synchronization reliability.
• Groove Server 2007 Manager will install and run with SQL 2008.
• Groove’s LDAP connectivity and auto-activation functionality have been improved.
• Error reporting in the Groove Relay Server has improved significantly.
• Groove Relay Server has improved robustness.

Forms Server

• Memory requirements and the page load times for large browser-rendered forms have been reduced.
• Browser rendering of various controls, such as the 'cannot be blank' asterisk and the rich text field has been improved.

Project Server

• Better memory management in the queue service.
• Performance to certain database table indexes is improved.
• Resource plans, build team, cost resources, and the server scheduling engine have improved.

Search Server

• Improvements to the reliability and stability of very large corpus crawls.
• Backup-restore has been improved.
• A new command has been introduced to the stsadm.exe tool that lets a SharePoint Administrator to tune the Query processor multiplier parameter.
• Improved accuracy in searches involving numbers.

Note: Two minor changes were made on April 22, 2009 to the original post of this blog. The changes were: Substantial improvements to Forms-based authentication was moved to the desktop section and support in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and SharePointDesigner was added to the sentence. Windows Server R2 was changed to Windows Server 2008 R2.

April 2009 Update Release

On Tuesday, April 14th, 2009, Office released 10 security updates in 2 bulletins addressing a total of 4 security vulnerabilities. The security updates apply to the following products:

• Microsoft Office Excel 2000, 2002, 2003, 2007, Excel Viewer 2003, Excel Viewer, the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack, and the 2007 Microsoft Office System, as described in security bulletin MS08-009. These updates address the issue described in Microsoft Security Advisory 968272.
• Microsoft Office Converters 2000 and 2002, as described in security bulletin MS08-010. These updates fix issues related to Microsoft Security Advisory 960906.

For complete details, see "Microsoft Security Updates for April 2009" for home users and "Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary for April 2009" for advanced users.