Office 2010 Update Fixes Installation Failures of Future Updates for the Productivity Suite

Office 2010 users can come across issues when installing updates for the productivity suite.

Fortunately, they can turn to a download offered free of charge by Microsoft to help them deal with potential issues. The Redmond company is offering an update designed to decrease installation failures of future Office 2010 refreshes.

Update for Microsoft Office 2010 (KB2553092), 32-Bit Edition and update for Microsoft Office 2010 (KB2553092), 64-Bit Edition are both live on the Microsoft Download Center and up for grabs immediately.

Microsoft points users to KB2553092 for additional details on this specific refresh. Unfortunately, the knowledge base article associated with this update is not yet live, so customers won’t be able to access it.

This is bound to be nothing more than a temporary issue, however, and I’m sure that the software giant will have KB2553092 up and running in the next few days at the latest.

To me, KB2553092 for Office 2010 sounds a bit like the System Update Readiness Tool which Microsoft is providing to Windows users.

Various inconsistencies can impact negatively the deployment of updates on Windows as well as on Office, and this is why the Redmond company is providing refreshes designed to fix any problems.

The difference is that while the System Update Readiness Tool plays nice with all supported releases of Windows, including Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1), KB2553092 is tailored to the 32-bit and 64-bit flavors of Office 2010 and nothing else.

Customers experiencing issues with deploying updates for Office 2010 might as well go ahead and download KB2553092 and launch it on their machine without waiting for the knowledge base article.

Here are the download links for the updates:

Update for Microsoft Office 2010 (KB2553092), 32-Bit Edition

Update for Microsoft Office 2010 (KB2553092), 64-Bit Edition

Microsoft Office 2010 (KB2460049) 32-bit Edition Service Pack 1 (SP1) is available for download here.

Microsoft Office 2010 (KB2460049) 64-bit Edition Service Pack 1 (SP1) is available for download here.

View the original article here

Office XP Dies on July 11, 2011

After making Service Pack 1 for Office 2010 available for download to all users, Microsoft is gearing up to kill one of the productivity suite’s predecessors, Office XP.

Per the software giant’s official support lifecycle, Office XP has less than 10 days of life left. The Redmond company confirmed that it would pull the plug on the decade old productivity suite release come July 11, 2011. As a range of additional Microsoft products, Office XP benefited from no less than five years of mainstream support and an additional five years of extended support.

Released on May 31, 2001, Office XP has finally come to the end of its lifecycle, with the company planning to retire support entirely for the product this month.

“The end of support means that we will no longer provide public fixes for the Office XP release. Automatic Updates that ship on “Patch Tuesday” will be discontinued. There will be no effect on installed software; products will still continue to function,” revealed Steve Chen, Microsoft senior support engineer.

Office XP mainstream support was retired on 7/11/2006 for all SKUs, namely the Developer Edition, the Professional Edition and the Standard Edition. Extended support will be discontinued as of July 11, 2011.

As Chen mentioned, Office XP will continue to work, but it’s simply not a good idea for customers to keep using it.

With the end of support, Microsoft will provide no more patches for Office XP, not even for Critical vulnerabilities, which will leave users exposed to attacks exploiting any flaws in the software.

“Microsoft recommends that customers keep their systems secure by upgrading to the latest, supported product and/or service pack, such as Microsoft Office 2010. Office 2007 Service Pack 2 and Office 2003 Service Pack 3 are also supported for the duration outlined in the Support Lifecycle Product Database,” Chen added.

“For our Premier Support customers, a Custom Support program is available. The support team has posted a useful web page about available options for retired product support. They have also published a good FAQ page to explain some of the background on the support policy.”

Microsoft Office 2010 (KB2460049) 32-bit Edition Service Pack 1 (SP1) is available for download here.

Microsoft Office 2010 (KB2460049) 64-bit Edition Service Pack 1 (SP1) is available for download here.

View the original article here

All Office 2010 SP1, SharePoint 2010 SP1 and Office Server 2010 SP1 Download Packages

It might not be a problem to get the 32-bit (x86) and the 64-bit (x64) flavors of Office 2010 Service Pack 1, but what about all the SP1 packages for the entire Office 2010 System and related offerings?

Fortunately enough, customers can take advantage of an online hub designed to streamline access to such resources as Office 2010 SP1, SharePoint 2010 and Office Server 2010 SP1 as much as possible. I’m talking about the “Update Center for Microsoft Office, Office Servers, and Related Products” available via this link.

According to the software giant, the Office Update Center is designed to cover a range of solutions including Office, Forms Server, Groove Server, PerformancePoint Server, Project Portfolio Server, Project Server, Search Server, SharePoint Server, SharePoint Foundation, Windows SharePoint Services, and FAST Search Server for SharePoint.

Customers running the Office 2010 suites, but also Project 2010, Visio 2010, Office 2010 servers, Office Web Apps, Search Server 2010, SharePoint 2010 Products, and FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint can take advantage of the Update Center in order to easily grab the latest service pack upgrades, the latest updates, cumulative updates as well as guidance from the company.

As far as the evolution of Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 is concerned, the best resources on the site are KB 2510690 and KB 2510766.

The two knowledge base articles are set up to provide users with the download links for all Office 2010 SP1 packages and all SharePoint 2010 and Office Server 2010 SP1 packages, respectively.

I’d dare to say that together with the Office Update Center, the KB articles are invaluable resources for customers looking to manually download and deploy Office 2010 SP1, SharePoint 2010 and Office Server 2010 SP1.

Download links:

Microsoft Office 2010 Service Pack 1

Microsoft Office 2010 Language Pack Service Pack 1 (here and here)

Microsoft Office Language Interface Pack 2010 Service Pack 1 (here and here)

Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2010 Service Pack 1

Microsoft Project 2010 Service Pack 1

Microsoft Visio 2010 Service Pack 1

Microsoft Visio 2010 Viewer Service Pack 1

Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer Service Pack 1

Microsoft Office 2010 Proofing Tools Kit Service Pack 1 (here and here)

Microsoft Office 2010 Filter Pack Service Pack 1

Microsoft Access 2010 Runtime Service Pack 1

Microsoft Access Database Engine 2010 Service Pack 1

Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 Client Object Model Redistributable Service Pack 1 (here and here)

Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Service Pack 1

Microsoft SharePoint and Project Server 2010 Service Pack 1

Microsoft Office Web Apps Service Pack 1

Microsoft Search Server 2010 Service Pack 1

Microsoft FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint Service Pack 1

Microsoft Groove Server 2010 Service Pack 1

Microsoft 2010 Server Language Pack Service Pack 1

Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 Service Pack 1

Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 Language Pack Service Pack 1

Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Indexing Connector for Documentum Service Pack 1 

View the original article here

Office 365 Available Globally in 40 Markets

Microsoft’s Cloud productivity suite has hit the general availability milestone, Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer announced at an event in New York.

Office 365 is the result of Office meeting the Cloud, the company’s CEO revealed. However, it must be underlined that Office 365 is in no way an equivalent or a replacement for the Office productivity suite, Office 2010 included. What the software giant is offering with Office 365 is a collection of services, Cloud equivalents of on-premises solutions from the company, such as Exchange Server, SharePoint, and Lync.

Customers paying monthly subscriptions of no more than $27 per user will be able to enjoy Microsoft Cloud offerings such as SharePoint Online, Exchange Online and Lync Online, Office Web Apps and even Office 2010.

At the time of launch, Office 365 is available to customers worldwide in no less than 40 markets, the company noted.

“Great collaboration is critical to business growth, and because it’s so important, we believe the best collaboration technology should be available to everyone,” Ballmer said.

“With a few clicks, Office 365 levels the playing field, giving small and midsize businesses powerful collaboration tools that have given big businesses an edge for years.”

Still, Office 365 is not geared exclusively to midsize companies or large enterprises. Flavors of the Cloud productivity suite are available for as less as $2 per user per month, with small businesses and professionals being able to take advantage of Office 365 for as little as $6 per user per month.

The software giant also stressed the importance of the Office 365 service provider partner ecosystem that is building, which already features companies as: Bell Canada, Intuit Inc., NTT Communications Corp., Telefonica S.A., Telstra Corp. and Vodafone Group Plc.

“Our partners represent some of the best-known, most-trusted brands in their local markets,” explained Kurt DelBene, president, Microsoft Office Division. “Our customers will be able to rest easy knowing their cloud services are backed by Microsoft and some of the greatest service providers in the world.”

View the original article here