Exchange Server 2007 SP2 Is Just Around the Corner

In mid-July 2009, Microsoft made available for download Update Rollup 9 for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1. At the same time, the company indicated that the second service pack for Exchange Server 2007 was drawing close. It was back in May 2009, that the software giant confirmed officially that it was going to offer customers Service Pack 2 for Exchange Server 2007 in the third quarter of 2009. However, even at this point in time, Microsoft has not delivered a specific deadline for the availability of Exchange Server 2007 SP2. Still, customers looking to upgrade their current installation of Exchange Server 2007 should be getting ready for the next service pack release.

“The release of Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 2 (SP2) is just around the corner (slated for release in this quarter). SP2 will include all fixes in this Update rollup as well as the fixes contained in all prior rollups. We'll be posting more information on when future update rollups can be expected for Exchange 2007 SP2 as well as information about the patching improvements these rollups will bring,” explained a member of the Exchange Customer Experience team.

On July 26th, 2009, Mohamed Baher, Microsoft certified architect, Messaging, pointed out that “Exchange 2007 SP2 is coming very soon.” Again, no specific launch date. But while it is cooking Exchange 2007 SP2, Microsoft is also moving forward with its public beta testing of the next iteration of Exchange. Customers have been able to download and test drive Exchange Server 2010 since earlier this year.

“Installations of Exchange 2007 SP2 will require Windows Installer 4.5,” Baher explained. “Exchange 2007 SP2 will Include Exchange 2010 schema. This will not eliminate the need however to run PrepareSchema when you deploy Exchange 2010 as we still have some checks we want to run and preps we need to do for 2010. However, you need to plan for a schema preparation before deploying SP2. [SP2 also introduces a] new blocking setup prerequisites to address. Exchange Volume Snapshot Backup Functionality - A new backup plug-in has been added to the product that will enable customers to create Exchange backups when a backup is invoked through the Windows Server 2008 Backup tool.”