• New Recover Deleted Items from Server button in Outlook

    Posted 3 months ago
    by Joe Schaeffer MSFT}

    Wanted to make you aware of a change made in Outlook 2013 with the October 2014 updates.

     

    After installing the October 2014 update for Outlook 2013, when you click on the Deleted Items folder, you’ll find a new button on the HOME tab for that folder: Recover Deleted Items from Server

     

    This change was made at the request of our Office 365 support teams, to make it easier for users to find this ability.  They were receiving, on average, 400 calls a month from users who didn’t know how to get back items deleted or that didn’t know they had to click on the FOLDER tab to find this option.

     

    No documentation has been posted yet regarding this change and probably wont be as it's such a minor change.  However, I thought support folks might like to be made aware of it in case you get questioned about it or notice it.  The Recover Items option is STILL on the FOLDER tab as well.

     

    There are plans to also make this change to Outlook 2010 in the November 2014 update for Outlook 2010.

  • Current Cumulative Updates for Office - Q4 2014

    Posted 3 months ago
    by Joe Schaeffer MSFT}

    As I mentioned in the Current Cumulative Updates for Office - Q3 2012 post, each quarter I will post information on the latest updates for the Office for Windows and Office for Macintosh products.

    The information below is being provided regarding the most currently available updates available for the supported Windows and Macintosh versions of Office as of October 1, 2014.

    As a reminder on why I'm providing this information and how it should be used, please see my Keeping Up with Office Updates post which discusses the cumulative updates for Office (and Outlook in particular) that companies need to be aware of and push out to their users. 

    Office for Windows

    Office 2013

    Office 2010

    Office 2007

    Office 2003

    • Office 2003 reached End-of-Life Support on April 8, 2014

    Note: Each of the KB articles includes the list/links for all the Office products (Word, Excel, Outlook, etc).  Most of you focus on Outlook and that’s the only ones required and is also provided separately but I wanted to provide the larger “Office” list in case you want it.

    As a reminder, Microsoft Update does *NOT* make the cumulative updates available to users.  These have to be downloaded and either installed independently or deployed using tools such as WSUS, SCCM, etc. 

    Office for Macintosh

    Office 2011

    • Current Service Pack Level: Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 SP3 (released January 2013)
      • Note: Office for Mac 2011 SP2 support ends April 8, 2014
      • Note: Office for Mac 2011 SP1 support ended July 9, 2013
      • Office for Mac 2011 support ends on January 12, 2016
    • Latest cumulative Update: August 2014 - 14.4.4 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2994002)

    Office 2008

    • Current Service Pack Level: Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac SP2 (released October 2009)
      • Office 2008 for Mac support ended on April 9, 2013
    • Last cumulative Update: March 2013 - 12.3.6 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2817449)

    Note: Each of the KB articles includes the link for downloading the package which updates ALL Office Products…there are not separate updates for each of the various components of Office as there is with the Windows releases.

  • Maintaining Lync and SQL

    Posted 5 months ago
    by Joe Schaeffer MSFT}

    First, my apologies in advance for my being a bit long worded in this post, but I thought this was the best way to communicate and explain this…

    An issue that has troubled customers for many years is that many of our products use or rely on other products of ours.  While that in itself is not an issue (and we consider it a benefit), the issue it causes is that updates from one product group do NOT contain updates for the other products.  In some cases, when an update for another product is required, the PG team will add in a pre-verification check letting you know that you need to install another product’s update first, but that's about it.

    However, fixes/updates to other products that are nice to have or recommended do NOT fall into this category.  And since most customers do not run Windows Update on the servers, but instead simply deploy known patches/updates/rollups/CUs manually, they may not be aware that other updates may be needed.

    For Lync, the main other product we rely upon (besides Windows) is SQL (both full SQL and SQL Express).  Many customers ask if Lync is supported/works with the latest SQL service pack (this question mainly comes up because the SQL team wants to deploy it to the SQL servers used by Lync, so the Lync team asks us if it's supported).  However, what gets overlooked is the copy of SQL Express that sits on all the Lync servers.  And, again, unless you’re occasionally running Windows Update to see what updates are available, you may not think of it as well (I'll even Microsoft support folks sometimes forget about it too).  The other situation where this also arises, is with Standard Edition servers…which completely use SQL express and may not be maintained by your SQL teams.

    Now, why did I just ramble on about this?  SQL 2012 SP2 was released a few months ago and contained several performance fixes.  Customers deploying it to the instance of SQL Express running on the Lync servers are seeing noticeable performance improvements.

    So, in summary, on your next patch cycle for your Lync environment (say to deploy the latest updates…*hint* *hint*), be sure to include applying SQL 2012 SP2.  As well as on your Lync 2010 environments, be sure to apply SQL 2008 SP3. 

    For customers still using OCS, this recommendation is also valid but only if you have OCS Standard Edition servers (which, like Lync Standard Edition servers, use SQL Express). 

  • Current Cumulative Updates for Office - Q3 2014

    Posted 6 months ago
    by Joe Schaeffer MSFT}

    As I mentioned in the Current Cumulative Updates for Office - Q3 2012 post, each quarter I will post information on the latest updates for the Office for Windows and Office for Macintosh products.

    The information below is being provided regarding the most currently available updates available for the supported Windows and Macintosh versions of Office as of April 10, 2014.

    As a reminder on why I'm providing this information and how it should be used, please see my Keeping Up with Office Updates post which discusses the cumulative updates for Office (and Outlook in particular) that companies need to be aware of and push out to their users. 

    Office for Windows

    Office 2013

    Office 2010

    Office 2007

    Office 2003

    • Office 2003 reached End-of-Life Support on April 8, 2014

    Note: Each of the KB articles includes the list/links for all the Office products (Word, Excel, Outlook, etc).  Most of you focus on Outlook and that’s the only ones required and is also provided separately but I wanted to provide the larger “Office” list in case you want it.

    As a reminder, Microsoft Update does *NOT* make the cumulative updates available to users.  These have to be downloaded and either installed independently or deployed using tools such as WSUS, SCCM, etc. 

    Office for Macintosh

    Office 2011

    • Current Service Pack Level: Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 SP3 (released January 2013)
      • Note: Office for Mac 2011 SP2 support ends April 8, 2014
      • Note: Office for Mac 2011 SP1 support ended July 9, 2013
      • Office for Mac 2011 support ends on January 12, 2016
    • Latest cumulative Update: June 2014 - 14.4.3 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2978808)

    Office 2008

    • Current Service Pack Level: Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac SP2 (released October 2009)
      • Office 2008 for Mac support ended on April 9, 2013
    • Last cumulative Update: March 2013 - 12.3.6 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2817449)

    Note: Each of the KB articles includes the link for downloading the package which updates ALL Office Products…there are not separate updates for each of the various components of Office as there is with the Windows releases.

  • Current Cumulative Updates for Office - Q2 2014

    Posted 9 months ago
    by Joe Schaeffer MSFT}

    As I mentioned in the Current Cumulative Updates for Office - Q3 2012 post, each quarter I will post information on the latest updates for the Office for Windows and Office for Macintosh products.

    The information below is being provided regarding the most currently available updates available for the supported Windows and Macintosh versions of Office as of April 10, 2014.

    As a reminder on why I'm providing this information and how it should be used, please see my Keeping Up with Office Updates post which discusses the cumulative updates for Office (and Outlook in particular) that companies need to be aware of and push out to their users. 

    Office for Windows

    Office 2013

    Office 2010

    Office 2007

    Office 2003

    • Office 2003 reached End-of-Life Support on April 8, 2014

    Note: Each of the KB articles includes the list/links for all the Office products (Word, Excel, Outlook, etc).  Most of you focus on Outlook and that’s the only ones required and is also provided separately but I wanted to provide the larger “Office” list in case you want it.

    As a reminder, Microsoft Update does *NOT* make the cumulative updates available to users.  These have to be downloaded and either installed independently or deployed using tools such as WSUS, SCCM, etc. 

    Office for Macintosh

    Office 2011

    • Current Service Pack Level: Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 SP3 (released January 2013)
      • Note: Office for Mac 2011 SP2 support ends April 8, 2014
      • Note: Office for Mac 2011 SP1 support ended July 9, 2013
      • Office for Mac 2011 support ends on January 12, 2016
    • Latest cumulative Update: April 2014 - 14.4.1 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2939132)

    Office 2008

    • Current Service Pack Level: Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac SP2 (released October 2009)
      • Office 2008 for Mac support ended on April 9, 2013
    • Latest cumulative Update: March 2013 - 12.3.6 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2817449)

    Note: Each of the KB articles includes the link for downloading the package which updates ALL Office Products…there are not separate updates for each of the various components of Office as there is with the Windows releases.