Microsoft Office 2007 SP2 (Service Pack 2) Available for Download on April 28th

Microsoft has announced that the final RTM build of Microsoft Office 2007 SP2 (Service Pack 2) is due to release for public download on April 28th, 2009. 2nd service pack for the popular productivity suite is applicable for both the 2007 Microsoft Office System and the 2007 Microsoft Office servers.

According to Office Sustained Engineering blog, the download links for Microsoft Office 2007 SP2 will be published on April 28th, 2009 together with updated documentations and knowledge base articles. Microsoft Office 2007 SP2 build 12.0.6416.1000 has actually leaked to Internet for early download, although it’s unclear if the build is official SP2 version or not.

On April 28th, 2009, Microsoft Office 2007 SP2 final official RTM version is released.

Office Sustained Engineering also published a summary list of updates contained in the Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 2.

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.

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.
• Substantial improvements to Forms-based authentication.

Windows Server 2008 SP2 and Windows Server 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.