Announcing Service Pack 2 (SP2) for the Microsoft Office System 2007

Microsoft Office Team’re pleased to announce that Service Pack 2 (SP2) for the 2007 Microsoft Office system is expected to be released in the near future. Although we aren’t yet announcing the exact release date, it will fall between February and April of 2009.

Historically, we have waited to communicate details about service packs until their release (or very shortly before). As we communicated with SP3 for Office 2003 and SP1 for the 2007 Office System, we will be taking steps to increase transparency and visibility into the Office servicing model at the request of our customers. To that end, we would like to start sharing some details into what will be included in SP2 for the 2007 Office system. This is by no means an exhaustive list of everything included in this service pack and we will share more details prior to the final release, but we want to start communicating to customers what they should be aware of at a high level.

To be fair, this is not the first time we have talked about SP2. Several months ago, we announced that we’ll be further demonstrating our increased commitment to interoperability by including support for Open Document Format (ODF), XML Paper Specification (XPS), and Portable Document Format (PDF) in SP2. In addition to those file format additions, some other highlights that you’ll find in SP2 include:

For Office Desktop Programs:
· Improved Outlook Calendaring Reliability
· Improved Outlook Performance
· Enabling Object Model support for Charts in PowerPoint and Word
· Improved cryptographic functionality by supporting all cryptographic algorithms offered by the operating system
· Improved functionality in Excel’s charting mechanism
· Ability to ungroup SmartArt graphics (and as a result, the ability to add animations to them in PowerPoint)
· Ability for Visio to export UML models to an XML file compliant with the XMI standard
· Tool that enables the uninstall of Office client Service Packs

For Servers:
· Performance and manageability improvements to variations in Enterprise Content Management (ECM) including STSADM commands for repairing links between source and target pages
· Improvements around processing status approvals from Office Project Web Access into Office Project Professional 2007
· Improvements to read-only content databases and index rebuild timer jobs in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

In the coming weeks, individual product teams across Office will begin updating their blogs and highlighting some of the specific work that they’ve included in SP2. You can find the links to some of the blogs at the end of the post.

In the next few days we will also invite a select set of Office enterprise customers to a private SP2 beta. From these customers we hope to gather great feedback about the service pack, including areas that we’ll need to improve upon before we release it to the general public. Based on the success of the SP2 beta program and customer needs, we will certainly evaluate whether to expand this in the future.

Sharepoint Conference 2009

Microsoft is delighted to announce the SharePoint Conference 2009 - the premier worldwide conference dedicated to SharePoint and related technologies. There’s an exciting mix in the plans for this year. This year’s conference will be looking towards the future with a broad array of deep content centered on the next version of SharePoint, codenamed SharePoint “14” and at the same time be firmly planted in the present, sharing real world experience and guidance to help you maximize your investment in SharePoint Server 2007. SharePoint Conference 2009 will be the conference to learn about SharePoint “14”. Be the first to learn about the improvements we’ve made to the platform and how many of those investments can be quickly implemented to add value to your organization and businesses. If you’re an IT Professional, an IT Decision Maker, an Architect or a Developer you’ll find a deep set of technical content to give you a kick start for SharePoint “14” and further your skills and knowledge with SharePoint Server 2007. In addition to the session content you'll have ample opportunities to network with technical and industry experts including many of the Microsoft staff that helped build SharePoint, Microsoft Most Valued Professionals and many of our top Certified Partners. Don’t miss out on the biggest SharePoint event of the year! REGISTER NOW to attend from the 19th to the 22nd of October 2009 at the Mandalay Bay Hotel & Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada. This event promises to be the biggest and the best SharePoint Conference yet! Early bird registration is open today for $899 (USD) for the first 500 registrations - a savings of $300 (USD) off the regular attendee cost.

Link: http://www.mssharepointconference.com/Pages/default.aspx

Using the new features in SQL Server 2008 with Office SharePoint Server 2007

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 includes several new and enhanced features that are important for deploying Office SharePoint Server 2007. New and enhanced SQL Server 2008 features are especially relevant for SharePoint deployments in four principal areas:

> Performance
> Availability
> Security
> Resource management

You can improve Office SharePoint Server performance by implementing the new database backup compression feature in SQL Server 2008. The ability to compress database backups is a significant improvement for Office SharePoint Server users; it enables you to significantly decrease the size of your database backups and shipped logs.

You can improve Office SharePoint Server availability by implementing the new log stream compression feature in SQL Server 2008. One of the performance-limiting factors of database mirroring is network throughput between the principal and mirror servers. SQL Server 2008 supports compression of the log stream, which consists of the inserts, updates, and deletes that are transferred between servers. Log stream compression can help maximize network throughput, especially in environments where network conditions are poor.

You can improve Office SharePoint Server security by using the new Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) feature in SQL Server 2008. TDE enables you to encrypt entire databases and requires no application awareness or modification. TDE encrypts data as it is written to disk and decrypts data as it is read from disk.

You can improve Office SharePoint Server resource management by using SQL Server 2008 Resource Governor. SQL Server Resource Governor enables you to maintain and administer your SQL Server resources, such as CPU and memory. You can use SQL Server Resource Governor to precisely control how your SQL Server resources are allocated. With SQL Server Resource Governor, you can apply thresholds to incoming connections based on assigned criteria.

For prescriptive guidance about implementing some of the new features in SQL Server 2008 that enhance the deployment of Office SharePoint Server 2007, see Integration of SQL Server 2008 and Office SharePoint Server 2007.

For information about SQL Server 2008 system requirements, see Hardware and Software Requirements for Installing SQL Server 2008.

SharePoint group audience targeting stops functioning

After you install the updates that are described in Microsoft Knowledge Base articles 952294 and 946517, Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007 audience targeting stops functioning for nested SharePoint groups for global navigation and for any SharePoint group audience targeting for Web parts. The navigation links and Web parts in these cases are not visible at all. Therefore, they are inaccessible to the user targeted.

Hot Fix :

Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package (Coreserver.msp): October 28, 2008
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957693
http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=957693

WSS & SharePoint Update / Hot Fix

Announcing August Cumulative Update for Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
The Microsoft Office team has changed the way that it delivers hotfixes for reported problems. This change comes in the form of cumulative updates and critical on-demand hotfixes. The objective is to deliver high-quality fixes in an acceptable time and on a predictable schedule. Cumulative updates are scheduled for every two months, so customers can be better prepared to test and apply new updates. Those who need an emergency fix can request critical on-demand (COD) fix. For information, please refer to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953878.
The detail of August Cumulative Update (CU) for Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 can be found here:
Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 hotfix package (Wssmui.msp): August 26, 2008
Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 hotfix package: August 26, 2008
Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package: August 26, 2008
Customers are not needed to install these updates unless they are affected by specific problems described in the KB articles. And these cumulative updates will be rolled in to Service Pack 2.
To keep all files in a SharePoint installation updated, we recommend customers to follow the path below:
1. Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Service Pack 1
2. The 2007 Microsoft Office Servers Service Pack 1
3. The Windows SharePoint Services Infrastructure Update x86 x64
4. The Microsoft Office Servers Infrastructure Update x86 x64
5. KB 953397: Excel Server Security Update x86 x64
6. KB 955586: Document Lifecycle Workflow Update
7. August Cumulative Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (Global)
8. August Cumulative Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (Local)
9. August Cumulative Update for Microsoft Office Servers
After applied all these updates, run SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard or “psconfig –cmd upgrade –inplace b2b” in command line. This need to be done on every server in the farm with SharePoint installed.
The version of databases should be 12.0.6327 after all these updates.
For a better guided update process, customers would also like to check out the following guides. These articles provide a correct way to deploy updates, as well as known issues and how to do slipstream builds.
Deploy software updates for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288269.aspx
Deploy software updates for Office SharePoint Server 2007
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263467.aspx

Update: October Cumulative Update has been released on Oct 28th. Here're the download links and descriptions.

______________________________________________________________

Cumulative update packages for the 2007 Microsoft Office core suite applications and for 2007 Microsoft Office servers: October 28, 2008

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/958847

Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 hotfix package: October 28, 2008

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957691

http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=957691

Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package (Coreserver.msp): October 28, 2008

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957693

http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=957693

Announcing December Cumulative Update for Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

___________________________________________________

We are happy to announce that December Cumulative Update for Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 is available now. Despite the fixes and improvements, this new update package is also an effort to create a more convenient way for SharePoint administrators to keep all files in their SharePoint installations up-to-date. In this post, we will guide you on how and when to update, and the background of this new update model improvement.

December Cumulative Update Steps & Suggestions
Customers do not need to install these updates unless they are affected by the specific problems described in the KB articles. These cumulative updates will be rolled in to Service Pack 2.
To keep all the files in a SharePoint installation up-to-date, we recommend that customers install updates in the following sequence:

1. Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Service Pack 1
2. The 2007 Microsoft Office Servers Service Pack 1
3. December Cumulative Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
4. December Cumulative Update for Microsoft Office Servers

After applying the preceding updates, run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard or “psconfig –cmd upgrade –inplace b2b -wait” in command line. This needs to be done on every server in the farm with SharePoint installed. The version of content databases should be 12.0.0.6335 after successfully applying these updates.

The detail of December Cumulative Update (CU) for Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 can be found here:
Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 cumulative update package: December 16, 2008 (The link will be active soon)
Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 cumulative update package: December 16, 2008 (The link will be active soon)

Visual Studio 2010 Tools for SharePoint & .NET Framework 4.0

Visual Studio 2010 Tools for SharePoint Announced at TechEd EMEA Developers 2008

This week at TechEd EMEA in Barcelona, Jason Zander, the GM for Visual Studio, announced and demonstrated the Visual Studio 2010 tools for SharePoint. Here's a quick summary of what he showed:
•Server Explorer for SharePoint viewing Lists and other artifacts in SharePoint directly inside of Visual Studio
•Windows SharePoint Services Project (WSP file) Import to create a new solution
•Added a new web part project item and showed the Visual web part designer which loads a user control as a web part for SharePoint
•Showed adding an event receiver for SharePoint and using the wizard to choose the event receiver and to just create a source file with that event receiver.
•Added an ASPX workflow initiation form to a workflow project and showed how this workflow initiation form has designer capability
•Showed the packaging explorer and the packaging editor which lets you structure the SharePoint features and WSP file that is created

Web Url: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vs2008/products/cc948977.aspx

Visual Studio 2010: http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/2010/overview.mspx

.NET Framework 4.0 [Dublin] : http://www.microsoft.com/net/Dublin.aspx

Custom Site Theme for SharePoint 2007 (MOSS 2007) and WSS 3.0

The easiest and the fastest way to apply the same look and feel on any SharePoint site is creating a site theme. A SharePoint site theme basically consists of theme.inf, theme.css, and image files. Theme.inf file simply represents the title of the theme. Theme.css is a stylesheet file that defines colors, header images and layouts of a site and image files can be referenced here to display on the page. By creating a custom site theme, you can easily change the style but in fact, writing and editing the stylesheet can be somewhat chanllenging when you have more than a hundred of elements to deal with.

Here is a short procedure of creating a custom site theme named "India":
1. Copy any theme folder in "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\THEMES" folder and paste with its name replaced with "India". In this example, copy GRANITE folder.
2. In India folder, rename GRANITE.INF file to INDIA.INF in upper case.
3. Open INDIA.INF file with notepad.
4. Change the value of title under [Info] to India.
5. Replace every word, Granite, under [titles] with India.
6. Open "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\1033\SPTHEMES.XML" file with notepad.
7. Add the following lines under tag:
Templates>
TemplateID>India
DisplayName>India
Description>We love India .
Thumbnail>images/India.gif
Preview>images/India.gif
/Templates>

Notice that preview and thumbnail paths are images/India.gif. By default, MOSS 2007 and WSS 3.0 will not have such image files.

8. In order to display thumbnail and preview correctly, you will need to capture the screen and save the file in "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\IMAGES" folder with India.gif name. You can change the .gif file name if you change the thumbnail and preview file names in tag.

9. Do an iisrest for the server to recognize the new theme.

Pretty simple procedure. Now you are ready to test your new theme. In Site Settings, you can now choose India theme; however, the theme will not differ from Base theme. Now, it is time for you to play with theme.css file!