Office Sustained Engineering : SharePoint

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

The Microsoft Office Sustained Engineering Team — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 03:50:00 GMT

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.

Announcing New Daylight Saving Time Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

The Microsoft Office Sustained Engineering Team — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 20:54:00 GMT

Microsoft has released an update to Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (x86, x64). This update provides the latest time zone definitions. For more information, see the Microsoft Knowledge Base article KB956612 and the Microsoft SharePoint Team blog.

October 2008 Update Release

The Microsoft Office Sustained Engineering Team — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 02:34:00 GMT

On Tuesday, October 14^th, 2008, Office released 9 security updates across 2 bulletins. 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, and Excel Services in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, as described in security bulletin MS08-057.
Microsoft Office XP, as described in security bulletin MS08-056.

For complete details, see "Microsoft Security Updates for October 2008" for home users and "Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary for October 2008" for advanced users. Office also released two updates for the Outlook 2003 and 2007 Junk Email Filters.

Office also released Security Update for the Access Snapshot Viewer, as described in security bulletin MS08-041. This update applies to the Download Center edition of the Access Snapshot Viewer.

Announcing Availability of Infrastructure Updates

David [Microsoft] — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 02:15:00 GMT

As announced on the SharePoint Team blog, this morning we released to web three new important updates that affect SharePoint Server 2007, Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Project Server 2007, Search Server 2008, Search Server 2008 Express and Project Professional 2007.

The Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (KB951297) applies to:

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
Microsoft Office Project Server 2007
Microsoft Search Server 2008
Microsoft Search Server 2008 Express

The Infrastructure Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (KB951695) applies to:

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

The Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Project 2007 (KB951547) applies to:

Microsoft Office Project Professional 2007

The Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers contains the new Enterprise Search features that were shipped in Search Server 2008 and Search Server 2008 Express that were are not already in SharePoint Server 2007; this includes Federated Search capability, a unified administration dashboard and several Search core platform performance updates. Read more about the new Search features here.

There are several Content Deployment updates included in both the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers and the Infrastructure Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. These updates address many of the top customer reported issues with Content Deployment. Read more about the Content Deployment updates here.

The Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (KB951297) and the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Project 2007 (KB951547) include several usability and performance updates for Project Server 2007 and Project Professional 2007 in addition to addressing the top customer reported issues. Read more about the Project Server and Project Professional updates here and in this White Paper.

All three updates contain fixes and product performance updates driven by customer feedback which have resulted in significant platform performance improvements in several areas. There has also been a focus on several core platform components, including improvements to upgrade, future patching and servicing, several targeted updates for workflow, the Business Data Catalog and inter-farm server authentication with Kerberos. For more detailed information please read the KB articles listed further on in this post.

We strongly recommend that you install the updates that apply to you as soon as your patching and maintenance schedules permit.

The updates can be downloaded from the links below:

Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (KB951297) - x86

Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (KB951297) - x64

Infrastructure Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (KB951695) - x86

Infrastructure Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (KB951695) - x64

Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Project 2007 (KB951547) - x86

* The updates are applicable to all shipping languages.

Installation Instructions are available from the links below:

Deploy Software Updates for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

Deploy Software Updates for Office SharePoint Server 2007 - This article also applies to Project Server 2007, SharePoint Server 2007, Search Server 2008 and Search Server 2008 Express.

Install the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (Office SharePoint Server 2007)

Install the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (Search Server 2008)

Related Knowledge Base Articles are available from the links below:

Description of the Infrastructure Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (KB951695)

Fixes Included in the Infrastructure Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (KB953749)

Description of the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (KB951297)

Fixes Included in the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (KB953750)

Description of the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Project 2007 (KB951547)

Fixes Included in the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Project 2007 (KB953751)

Please read and familiarize yourself with the installation instructions before you start.

For reference, the following products require the following updates to be applied.

If you are running SharePoint Server 2007 you should install the Infrastructure Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (KB951695) first and the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (KB951297) second.

If you are running Project Server 2007 you should install the Infrastructure Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (KB951695) first and the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (KB951297) second. You should also then install the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Project 2007 (KB951547) on all Project Professional 2007 client PCs.

If you are running Search Server 2008 or Search Server 2008 Express you should install the Infrastructure Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (KB951695) first and the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (KB951297) second.

If you are running Project Professional 2007 you should install the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Project 2007 (KB951547).

It is strongly recommended that you install Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Service Pack 1 and Office Servers Service Pack 1 before installing the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (KB951297) and the Infrastructure Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (KB951695).

The installation process will incur server and farm downtime that you will need to plan for – updates should be installed on all servers in a farm.