14 DAY TRIAL // Although the main focus has been placed on the first service pack for Windows Vista and on the third and final refresh for Windows XP, Microsoft is also hammering away at its remaining flagship product. On December 11, Officer 2007 Service Pack 1 will become widely available for download. The Redmond company confirmed this officially, revealing a much earlier release date than it was previously announced. Initially, Office 2007 SP1 was planned to accompany Windows Vista SP1 in the first quarter of 2008. At that time, few details were offered regarding to what Office 2007 Service Pack 1 would bring to the table. The refresh will tweak the product's performance, reliability and security, but truth be told, Office 2007 has had an exemplary first year, although it has managed to do so while in the background of Windows Vista.
"The 2007 Microsoft Office System Service Pack 1 reflects unceasing efforts of the Microsoft Office System team to address customer concerns. Nearly all of the improvements, included in the 2007 Office System SP1, are the response to direct feedback from power users at large organizations or indirect feedback from home and from office users. By tapping these extensive customer-feedback channels, the Microsoft Office System team has targeted the issues that customers care about most. As a result, the 2007 Office System SP1 will deliver significant stability and performance improvements to the applications that home and office workers rely on every day," revealed John Rajunas, Microsoft Account Technology Specialist.
On December 11, the Office System team at Microsoft will go public with the service pack, and plans are, of course, to serve it as a Critical update. With Office 2007 SP1, Microsoft plans to deliver support for Windows Server 2008 and to offer updates for Project and Project Server. "The use of Automatic Update (AU) Deployment has been a concern we have heard from many customers in recent months. Because of this, the 2007 Office System SP1 will not be released to AU immediately. Instead, the Microsoft Office System team will provide guidance as to a date at which we will begin throttling up so that you have time to educate yourself on what is in SP1 and determine the best method for you to deploy it in your environment," Rajunas added.