Office Word 2007 Update Available for Download

Microsoft is making various changes to the Word component of the Office 2007 system, some designed to improve user experience, others set up to modify the product in accordance with a court injunction of sales for a patent infringement lawsuit lost by the company in 2009. In this regard, the Redmond company has released Update for Microsoft Office Word 2007 (KB974631), offering additional details on just what the refresh brings to the table in Description of the January 2010 update for Office Word (KB978951).

KB 974631 “contains stability and performance improvements for Office Word 2007,” Microsoft explained. “Generally, customers who purchase or license Office Word 2007 from Microsoft after January 10, 2010 for use in the United States and its territories must use updated software that does not include a particular custom XML tagging implementation. You must install this update if you are instructed by Microsoft in a separate communication.”

At the start of this year, the software giant made available new copies of Office 2007 and Word 2007 after it removed a piece of technology which had been patented by Toronto-based company i4i. Microsoft lost both the trial and the appeal against a lawsuit filed by i4i over the integration of custom XML into Word 2007.

KB 978951 “is an update to Microsoft Office Word 2007 (including Office 2007 suites) and Microsoft Office Word 2003 (including the Office 2003 suites). This update was issued as a result of a United States court ruling on December 22, 2009. Generally, customers who purchase or license Word 2007 or Word 2003 from Microsoft after January 10, 2010 for use in the United States and its territories will need to use updated software that does not include a particular custom XML tagging implementation,” Microsoft informed.

New copies of Office 2007 and Word 2007 which will be offered to customers after the court injunction comes in effect past January 10, 2010, will no longer play nice with custom XML markup in .docx, .docm, or .xml files. While the product will indeed open documents containing custom XML, all custom XML markups will be removed.

“If you apply this update to versions of Office Word that were distributed by Microsoft before January 11, 2010, the updated version will treat custom XML markup in the same way as versions of Office Word 2007 that are distributed by Microsoft after January 10, 2010,” Microsoft explained.