Office 2007 SP2 Available Today- Good Fixes For All
Microsoft is releasing SP2 for Office 2007 in a few hours, and as usual you will want to get this installed ASAP. There are a lot of fixes and improvements to the entire Office package, but the most notable may be the big Outlook performance boost that MS is claiming. SP2 finally brings the ability to work in OpenDocument Format for Office 2007, a much-needed addition.
OneNote 2007 users should be sure and get SP2 for that, as it is also being released today and, according to MS, has the following improvements:
- Improved SharePoint sync
- Fewer crashes
- Security improvements
- Fix for when you send an email from OneNote and the embedded files end up as images in Outlook instead of attached files
I think I’ll stick with the “if it ain’t broken…” approach here. None of the items listed sounds useful to me (other than maybe the security thingie… but even then what security problems could Office have when I write a letter or a simple spreadsheet?).
I believe there is the possibility of malicious code being able to take advantage of weaknesses in the programs’ code. We are normally advised by out IT security staff to update programs when potential security exploits have been identified and corrected. Given what they have to deal with on a daily basis, I’ll take their word on it. YMMV.
–Ken
Why is OpenDocument format “much needed”? I’ve never come across a file in this format in my entire life and doubt too many other people have either. The only thing notable about the format is that a very noisy but very tiny number of Linux users seem to want to thrust it on the rest of us despite the fact that it’s neither needed nor wanted.
I would get it just for the Outlook updates. Outlook 2007 SP2 is much quicker than Outlook 2007 SP1. Trust me. Plus if you are an Access user – they added back the feature to convert Reports into Excel files. Open Office may not be that big of a deal but they keep gaining a little bit of ground so it is useful just in case you come across one. Plus, stability issues are addressed. PDF and XPS support are now built in as opposed to a separate download. Overall, SP2 is much better than SP1.
Just the boost performance in outlook is worth the entire service pack.
Now Outlook flies!!!! It’s just a new program!!
Well considering you can get the Outlook update on its own, it hardly justifies a 290MB service pack, HOWEVER, all of the other stability and performance updates throughout the suite DO justify it, and yes, it IS a big boost in Outlook.
well I think they have done more to Outlook since because I already had the Outlook update and with SP2 it is faster with the update alone.
The OneNote to Outlook item confuses me. I currently want images I have in OneNote to embed in the body of my Outlook email going out.
Are they saying that in the future (after update) when I attempt to email from OneNote my image I want embedded as HTML in the body are now going to convert to attached files???
Well, I have experienced a better performance since SP2 that only with the patch for outlook alone, so something more is in the sp.
We have already experienced a major problem with this service pack on all our machines running Office 2007. Outlook 2007 now seems unable to get Global Address Book information which breaks sending mail, and oddly, printing emails too. The errors say something along the lines of it being ‘offline’ and unable to talk to the Exchange server when it clearly can and still picks up mail fine.
The command line Service Pack uninstaller took several attempts to get it working but removing SP2 does fix the problem so its definitely the culprit. This is causing us a major headache right now.
Frank,
We’ve got the same issue on our corporate network and its definately an SP2 issue. Our PC’s that are running SP1/Pre SP1 work perfectly with the address book but SP2 just won’t play ball.
Our setup is we’re on one domain and accessing our outlook accounts on another domain by logging into to that domain in outlook. Is yours similar or is everything on one network? I’m trying to narrow down the issue.
Guys,
What version(s) of Exchnage? 2000? 2003? 2007?
I’ve deployed it on a couple of workstations and haven’t heard complaints, but the company in which I deployed it generally don’t use the gab for some reason.
Tcv
We have similar problems using Exchange 2003. But it is also reported with Exch.2007:
http://forums.techarena.in/office-update-service/1171090.htm
I have noticed the desktop alerts have stopped working! Even if you go into the settings and hit the preview button nothing happens!
I had the same issue with My outlook being seen as Offline when I installed the update. Look at your computers internet filter. That was the culprit here. It was blocking my connection. Call up your internet filter company to work on the issue.
I havent seen any issues here, either from users in Online or Offline (Cached) mode. Rebooting after installing directly and then letting Outlook rebuild the .ost if you are in offline mode is key.
Wow! Today (afte SP2) I had Outlook crash the first time in years. I suppose “Fewer crashes” is not for me, then
I checked the workstations on which I downloaded and installed Office 2007 SP2. No problems. They can access the Global Address List without issue and they report good performance. Hmmm…
With SP2, OneNote 2007 now crashes and is unusable. Sigh.
Any fix for SP2 yet??? I can’t print, make changes to my calendar, etc etc…. this is BS..
Possible Solutions
http://techblogogy.net/index.php/2009/05/office-2007-service-pack-2-the-gift-that-keeps-giving/
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;969519
I’ve tried method 4 but haven’t had any luck yet and I don’t really want to try the other methods just yet as it requires a reboot of the exchange server so will leave that for now. But good luck!
I had the same problem as Frank with the Global Address Book information issue on our company exchange email. We had to roll all our Outook 2007 back from SP2. In addition, on my personal machine at home, Outlook 2007 crashed the day after I installed SP2. All I was running from my home via Outlook was Gmail and hotmail. Never a problem before. After running the command line uninstall, all is good. So much for my hopes for a speedier Outlook……….*sigh*
Hi,
I had the same problem as Frank with the Global Address Book issue after office 2007 SP2 is installed. After some investigation one user cannot even create new profile, as described by SimbaK2k. The kb article
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;969519 method 2 maybe a possible solution, but I cannot reboot my exchange server for the moment.
I lookup at Exchange Team blog and found this archive http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2005/11/04/413669.aspx . I came to realized after Exchange 2003 SP2 onwards, Microsoft change the DSProxy behaviour. The Outlook client 2003 SP 2 onwards will always ask Exchange for the GC, and Exchange will try to point to the GC that it is using. For some reason Outlook 2007 SP 2 just cannot locate the GC for some reasons. This problem will occur when you have a site with multiple domains and multiple GC, or even GC at another site.
Out of desperation I found this kb article, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/319206/EN-US/ . What this kb article do is to set Outlook to look for its own GC, instead of asking Exchange which GC to use. I set Outlook to look for the “Closest GC”. And now Outlook 2007 SP2 can connect to the Directory service.
However this is just a workaround. It is not possible to change all 1000 users on my site. I will still explore the kb969519 the method 2, configuring the RFR service, once I can get a downtime for my Exchange server.