Announcing Service Pack 2 for Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

We are happy to announce that Service Pack 2 for Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 has been released to the Microsoft Download Center.  It includes all the fixes prior to SP2, and also several enhancements to improve server farm performance, availability and stability. Plus, a new STSADM operation has been added to help customers prepare for the upgrade to the next version of SharePoint. We recommend installing this new service pack and to help, We’ve assembled links to the KB articles, downloads, install steps and benefits. 

Benefits

Customers will benefit from the following enhancements with Service Pack 2.

• Performance and Availability Improvements

Service Pack 2 includes many fixes and enhancements designed to improve performance, availability, and stability in your server farms, including:

• New Timer job automatically rebuilds content database index to improve database performance.
• When a content database is marked as read-only, the user interface will be modified so users cannot perform tasks that require writing to the database.
• Performance enhancement across nearly all the components.
• Improved Interoperability

Service Pack 2 continues to improve SharePoint interoperability with other products and platforms.

• Broader support of browsers
  Internet Explorer 8 is added into Level 1 browser support.
  FireFox 3.0 is added into Level 2 browser support. (Firefox 2.0 is no longer supported by Mozilla)
• Provide improved client integration user experience with Form Based Authentication. Now the client application can store user credentials instead of asking for them every time. For more technical details please refer to the updated articles on TechNet.
  Configure forms-based authentication (Office SharePoint Server
  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262201.aspx
  Configure forms-based authentication (Windows SharePoint Services)
  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288043.aspx

KB Article Links

Description of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP2 and of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Language Pack SP2
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953338
Description of 2007 Microsoft Office servers Service Pack 2 (SP2) and of 2007 Microsoft Office servers Language Pack Service Pack 2 (SP2)
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953334

Download Links

Service Pack 2 for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, x86 & x64
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=79BADA82-C13F-44C1-BDC1-D0447337051B&displaylang=en

Service Pack 2 for Office SharePoint Server 2007, x86 & x64
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=B7816D90-5FC6-4347-89B0-A80DEB27A082&displaylang=en

Slipstream Builds For Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 with SP2, x64
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=9FB41E51-CB03-4B47-B89A-396786492CBA&displaylang=en
Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 with SP2, x86
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=EF93E453-75F1-45DF-8C6F-4565E8549C2A&displaylang=en

Installation Steps

To keep all the files in a SharePoint installation up-to-date, the following packages need to be applied on all servers in the farm. Service Pack 2 contains all fixes released through February of this year, so customers can install it directly on RTM build of the products.

1. Service Pack 2 for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
2. Service Pack 2 for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Language Pack (if applicable)
3. Service Pack 2 for Office SharePoint Server 2007
4. Service Pack 2 for Office SharePoint Server 2007 Language Pack (if applicable)

After applying the preceding updates, run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard or "psconfig –cmd upgrade –inplace b2b -wait” in command line. This needs to be done on every server in the farm with SharePoint installed.  The version of content databases should be 12.0.0.6421 after successfully applying these updates.

For more in-depth guidance for the update process, we recommend that customers refer to the following articles. These articles provide a correct way to deploy updates, identify known issues (and resolutions), and provide information about creating slipstream builds.

Deploy software updates for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288269.aspx
Deploy software updates for Office SharePoint Server 2007
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263467.aspx

Create an installation source that includes software updates (Windows SharePoint Services 3.0)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc287882.aspx
Create an installation source that includes software updates (Office SharePoint Server 2007)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc261890.aspx