Office 2007 SP1 auto-installs confuse Vista, XP users
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Some users have gotten the massive Office 2007 SP1 update automatically, even though Microsoft said it would not use Windows' AU (Automatic Updates) to push out the large upgrade for several months, the company confirmed Thursday.Anyone running a preview copy of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1), which was made available to all comers only Wednesday, will receive the Office 2007 upgrade automatically. Users of other in-beta Microsoft products, including Windows XP SP3, which is still in limited testing, will also be hit by the Office update, which weighs in at almost 220MB."As noted to beta customers, if [they] are running Vista SP1 beta software, as part of the beta program, Office 2007 SP1 on pre-release Windows Vista SP1 will automatically install as planned for this beta program," said Bobbie Harder, a senior program manager with the WSUS (Windows Server Update Services) group.Others, including Susan Bradley, a writer for the WindowsSecrets newsletter, noticed the automatic download and install of Office 2007 SP1. "I woke up on Wednesday morning to find a notification that a Vista machine had rebooted after being patched," Bradley said in Thursday's issue of the newsletter. "I found, to my surprise, that the new Service Pack 1 for Office 2007, which was released on Tuesday, had been auto-installed."Bradley also said that even if users of Vista SP1, Windows XP SP3, or WSUS 3.0 SP3 manually installed Office 2007 SP1, AU later automatically installs -- actually re-installs -- the service pack.Earlier this week, when Microsoft unveiled the service pack, it said AU would not be used to deliver SP1 for at least three months and maybe as many as six months. In any case, it promised to give users 30 days' notice before it pushed it out using AU.While technically true -- Office 2007 SP1 is only shoved to users running a preview OS -- some Vista users have been confused by the appearance of the service pack in their Windows Update listings this week as they downloaded and applied numerous security patches.Harder explained what Vista users experience in a blog post Thursday. "On Vista in the Windows Update Control Panel Applet, the Office 2007 SP1 will appear as an available update to download and install, but it will not automatically download and install, regardless of the automatic settings," she said.That's true, countered Bradley, but because the service pack shows on the list and is checked by default, it's easy for users to overlook it, then get slammed with the massive download. "If you are a bit asleep and just blindly approve all of the patches, you get a very large wait while SP1 for Office 2007 is downloaded," she said.A Computerworld reader reported exactly that. "I received [Office 2007 SP1] last night Dec 11 as part of Windows Auto-update," said someone identified as 6monthVistaUser in a comment attached to a story about SP1. "Last night was the largest auto-update ever (230 MB download) filled with 11 updates. 1 was for IE v7, 6 were for Vista cumulative patches, 1 was the Office 2007 Service Pack 1, the other one was for Business Contacts Manager SP 1."Harder defended the process. "For customers who want the benefits of Office 2007 SP1 now, we have made it available," she said. She also noted that users could choose not to pull in the service pack. "Download and installation of the Office 2007 SP1 via the Vista Windows Update control panel applet requires explicit user interaction, just as with the Microsoft Update site," she said. "Once the list of available updates appears, they can de-select or uncheck the box next to Office 2007 SP1 and choose to download and install other updates, or just close the applet."The next time Windows Update runs, however, Office 2007 SP1 reappears, again checked by default. To strike it off the list, users must right-click the item in the list and choose "hide update."
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Upgrading your Windows Vista operating system to the Vista Service Pack 1 Release Candidate Refresh is complex and not necessarily for all Vista users, not yet. Take an in-depth excursion into the world of Vista upgrades.
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Office 2007 or bust Microsoft is making Office 2007 its default productivity suite for system builders, less than five months after the suite's full-scale launch.â¦
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Some say Win XP SP2 enhancements cause conflicts, don't protect as claimed.
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The newest version of Microsoft Office arrives this week, complete with a tricked-out user interface intended to impress the Windows-weary. By Scott Gilbertson. Plus: Gallery: Office 2007.
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Microsoft is including a set of nonsecurity updates that prepare customers to install Windows Vista Service Pack 1 as part of its monthly &quot;Patch Tuesday&quot; security fixes.Two of three prerequisite updates needed to install SP1 are hitting Microsoft&#39;s Windows Update for the first time Tuesday along with the usual batch of security updates it releases every month. The technologies -- called KB937287 and KB938371 -- are marked &quot;Important&quot; and will install automatically if a Windows user has Windows Update set to the recommended configuration, according to a post on the Windows Vista team blog.KB937287 is an update to Vista&#39;s servicing stack, and KB938371 is a multicomponent update, according to the blog post attributed to Nick White, a product manager on the Vista team. Both must be installed before a machine can successfully be updated to Windows Vista SP1.The third prerequisite to installing SP1, KB935509, also is being released through Windows Update Tuesday. However, that technology is an update of a previously released technology, not a brand new release.Microsoft plans to release Vista SP1&#160;in its first five languages -- English, French, Spanish, German, and Japanese -- to the Windows Update and the download center on Microsoft&#39;s Web site in mid-March. However, some computers may not work with the update right away because of device-driver incompatibilities; Microsoft is hoping to resolve those by mid-March, which is why it is putting off the release until then even though the final code for SP1 is available now.Following its first release, Microsoft in mid-April plans to make SP1 available in the first five languages to anyone who has chosen not to download it. Microsoft will follow with the remaining language releases of Vista SP1 soon after. Many believe the SP1 milestone is the one that will bring about a new wave of adoption for Vista, especially among&#160;business customers that have been awaiting the service pack&#39;s release&#160;before updating employee desktops.Microsoft releases security updates every second Tuesday of the month, which is why security researchers call the day &quot;Patch Tuesday.&quot; The company often includes nonsecurity updates with these releases, although it also will release nonsecurity updates on the fourth Tuesday of the month.
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InfoWorld - Windows Vista&#160;isn&#39;t the only recently released Microsoft software that will give users headaches when they upgrade their systems. Corporate users, partners, and analysts said upgrading to Exchange Server 2007 from previous versions also may be a lengthy and painful process for companies, which may want to take a wait-and-see approach to the new software.
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Q My new computer runs Windows Vista, but a lot of my older programs don't work right or don't run at all in Vista. Can I put Windows XP on this machine also?
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Many XP users still not really fans of the Vista.
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Service Pack 2 for XP represents a sea change in Microsoft's security posture. Here's why you should ignore the naysayers and start planning your upgrade.
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&quot;Whether companies roll out Windows XP immediately or replace their older operating systems with Windows XP when purchasing new PCs, companies now have to ensure XP SP2 compliancy by determining
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft Corp. has no plans to add a controversial Windows Vista antipiracy feature directly to its Office 2007 suite, but will consider offering it as an add-on system, the company said Tuesday. In an e-mail through its public relations firm, Microsoft said although it has not built its Software Protection Platform (SPP) into Office 2007, it is considering adding it to its Office Genuine Advantage (OGA) Program, a validation system that checks if a user has a legitimate copy of the software. Windows Vista's SPP feature requires users to activate the software with a valid activation key within 30 days of purchasing the OS. If that does not happen, the OS goes into reduced functionality mode, which lets users browse the Web for an hour before the system logs them out. To browse more, users must log in again, but they will only have another hour before the process repeats itself. Office 2007 does have a product-activation feature that acts similar to SPP, but it is not based on validating the legitimacy of the software and it is not new to the application, Microsoft said. Office has had a product-activation feature since Microsoft Office 2000 SR1. Product activation requires the system to be activated with a product key after being started 25 times. If it is not, the application will go into reduce functionality mode. Microsoft is going to makeÂ validation checks for Office 2007 mandatory for users of Office Update through its OGA program. Starting in January, users of Office Update will have to validate that their Office software is legitimate before they can use the service. OGA is a sister program to Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA), launched in July 2005 as a program that automatically checks a user's version of Windows to ensure it is not counterfeit or pirated. WGA evolved into SPP becoming an inherent part of Vista. Microsoft'sÂ antipiracy checking systems have been unpopular from the start, meeting with some resistance from users. WGA was especially unpopular at first when early bugs in its checks were tagging legitimate software as counterfeit or pirated. Microsoft also was forced to turn off a notification feature in the WGA that sent information to Microsoft from users' PCs when some complained that the feature was acting like spyware.
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Although Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is the big news of the day, Microsoft is concurrently preparing the third service pack for Windows XP. But SP3 won't introduce much of anything new for XP users, and will simply serve as a roll-up of already released fixes, Microsoft says.
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Microsoft on Thursday released a plug-in for Office 2007 that will allow users to save their documents in both PDF and XPS formats. The company previously planned to build in such capability, but bowed to pressure from Adobe to force customers to download it.
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Microsoft executives said they are working hard to finish up its&#160;Service Pack 1 for Microsoft Office Project 2007, an update that some users have been waiting for before deploying the most recent version of the software.SP1 will update Project Professional 2007, Project Server 2007 and Project Portfolio Server 2007, said Keshav Puttaswamy, group program manager at Microsoft, speaking during the Microsoft Office Project Conference in Seattle on Monday.It will primarily fix bugs and improve stability and performance, said Mike Angiulo, general manager of the Microsoft Project business unit. It will also enhance some cache features, he said.While the conference might have been an ideal venue for announcing the release date for SP1, executives said they&#39;ll wait another two or three weeks before disclosing that information.Office Project 2007, the most recent version of the project management software, became&#160;available earlier this year. But as with other new Microsoft software, some customers have been waiting for SP1 before deploying it.Christopher Ludlow, director of project management at Amylin Pharmaceuticals, in San Diego, said he is waiting for SP1 before migrating to Project 2007. The system integrator he works with advised him to hold off because their experience was that Project 2007 is glitchy and unstable, he said.If SP1 fixes those issues, he&#39;s interested in some of the new features of Project 2007, including a reported improved network responsiveness that may mean he doesn&#39;t have to rely on Citrix for remote access.Microsoft executives touted some other new features in Project 2007 at the conference. One of the most important updates in Project 2007 is that it can support many more users than it could previously, said Angiulo. Technology consulting firm EDS has one of the biggest deployments of Project 2003, with 8,000 users, he said. &quot;They were driving the limit of what you could get out of it,&quot; he said.Microsoft and EDS put together a scalability lab to test volume users of Project 2007. They supported 40,000 users, he said. EDS has a goal of growing to 60,000 users.Angiulo also promoted the integration of Project with other Microsoft software, such as Outlook and Excel. Because many businesses use Office software, that integration sounds helpful to Ludlow.But some of the integration is forced, which is turning other businesses away. Jan Tervonen, vice president of technology at Seattle medical technology company MRS, currently supports Project 2003. She started the upgrade to 2007 but backed out when she learned that it required the newest version of SharePoint. She wasn&#39;t ready for that upgrade yet.On Tuesday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is scheduled to address the conference, and he&#39;s expected to describe future planned enhancements to Project, including deeper integration with Word, PowerPoint and Outlook. In addition, future versions of Project will support earlier stage projects that aren&#39;t yet fully defined, he&#39;ll say. Those features are part of an overall strategy at Microsoft to try to expand the use of Project beyond project managers, he&#39;s expected to say.
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A typo in an official Microsoft e-mail is being blamed for rumors of an imminent Windows Vista service pack.
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The new waiting game Comment Vista is a step forward in security, but many businesses will be stuck with Windows XP for years to come, due to the cost of upgrading, the value of existing assets, and compatibility issues that trump security features.â¦