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Service Pack 2 for Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 Released
On Tuesday Microsoft announced Service Pack 2 for SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010.
The two service packs appear to have been released sometime earlier this month. Microsoft's announcement today points to an announcement dated on July 16, which indicates that the service packs were available at the Microsoft Download Center portal on that date. However, the Office 2010 SP2 download page and the SharePoint 2010 SP2 download page both indicate that they were released on Sunday, July 21.
Microsoft also released SP2 for Office Web Apps on July 21, which can be downloaded here. SP2 contains stability and performance improvements, plus security fixes. It also includes all Cumulative Updates through April and all Public Updates through May. Presumably, this is an update for Microsoft's Office Web Apps Server, used by organizations to support browser-based Microsoft Office-like applications, such as Excel, OneNote, PowerPoint and Word.
Microsoft lists all available SP2 packages for Office 2010 at this page, with those for SharePoint 2010 available here. The service packs can be downloaded, but they also will get distributed through the Microsoft Update service in about 90 days' time.
Microsoft last released SP2 for Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 in April as beta test software, but they are now available as completed products. One of the main reasons for installing these service packs is that they add compatibility with Microsoft's newer operating systems and applications. Microsoft is promising "better compatibility with Windows 8, Internet Explorer 10, Office 2013 and SharePoint 2013." The service packs also enable Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 to run on Windows Server 2012.
The SP2 releases for Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 add stability and performance improvements, security fixes and various updates since the last service pack. They contain Cumulative Updates from June 2011 onward and Public Updates from July 2011 onward.
Even though these releases are service packs, and designed to fix problems, Microsoft has listed a couple of known issues associated with installing them. For instance, Microsoft recommends installing a particular update first before installing Office 2010 SP2 on a computer that has Windows Server 2003 SP2 installed. There also is a SP2 known issue when the SharePoint Web front end has been upgraded "from Windows Server 2008 (R2) to Windows Server 2012."
About the Author
Kurt Mackie is senior news producer for 1105 Media's Converge360 group.