Notable Improved and Enhanced Changes in Office 2007 Service Pack 1 (Changelog)

Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Microsoft Office 2007 System Suites has been released for free download. The 2007 Office system SP1 improves significant stability, performance and security of the Office 2007 applications, and thus increases home and office workers productivity and unlock their creativity, primarily by resolving outstanding issues to make the 2007 Office release into a more effective, consistent, stable and responsive business tool.

Microsoft has also published a 2007 Office System Suite Service Pack 1 White Paper that describes in brief the notable improvements, enhancements and other changes that been made to individual Office 2007 programs. Summary of the changes, or the changelog for Office 2007 SP1 is listed below.

General Performance Fixes

Applications in the 2007 Office system work more effectively with the Japanese IME released by Microsoft, especially when inputting Japanese characters and converting those characters to kanji. In addition, computers that simultaneously run the Japanese IME and a security solution no longer use up to 100 percent of CPU resources.

Access 2007

• For third-party applications that use Data Access Object code to synchronize replicated information in a Microsoft Office Accessâ„¢ 2007 database, Office Access 2007 no longer returns a run-time error that causes the application to close or time out.
• Project files (.adp) no longer run slower than expected when opened in Microsoft Office Access 2007.

Communicator 2007

• The icons used to display presence are modified so that users who are red-green colorblind can determine people’s presence status.
• Office Communicator 2007 no longer causes presence icons to flicker when multiple people appear simultaneously.
• Presence information in Office Communicator 2007 and other Microsoft Office applications is consistent in all scenarios.
• Microsoft Office Outlook® 2007 no longer starts in the background along with Office Communicator 2007.

Excel 2007

• Office Excel 2007 no longer stops responding in some instances when opening a workbook containing calculations.
• Office Excel 2007 workbooks that are saved in Page Break Preview mode and opened in Microsoft Office Excel 2003 no longer produce an error when switched to Normal view.
• When inputting calculations that should result in numbers 65,534 through 65,536, Office Excel 2007 no longer returns the display error of 100,001.
• Office Excel 2007 now retains custom colors on shapes in Excel 2003 worksheets.
• Office Excel 2007 no longer misplaces or wraps labels in charts when the workbook is reopened.

Groove 2007

• Office Groove 2007 no longer places a 60-day limit on retired accounts that are stored in backup files.
• When the auto-activation feature is turned on and invited users open an invitation file (.grv), they are no longer prompted for an activation key or notified of an unconfigured account.

InfoPath 2007 and InfoPath Forms Server

• When users input data into an Office InfoPath 2007 form using a Web browser, the saved changes are now retained after closing and reopening the form.
• Font size no longer increases when pasting from one rich text box in Office InfoPath 2007 to another.

Outlook 2007

• Office Outlook 2007 no longer closes unexpectedly when the junk e-mail rule is set to null.
• Body content in HTML-formatted e-mail messages now appears properly in the preview pane or when the message is opened.
• Items moved from an offline folder file (.ost) to a personal folder file (.pst) now display properly in the preview pane.
• In search folders, Office Outlook 2007 now shows the accurate count for unread items that are hidden.
• When scheduling a resource such as a meeting room in meeting requests, the public free/busy information for the resource is now complete and visible in Office Outlook 2007.
• When users forward plain-text e-mail messages with attachments, the body text is now retained.
• If the Mailbox Cleanup wizard starts while the user is dragging a message into a folder, Office Outlook 2007 no longer closes unexpectedly.
• Improved performance in Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 eliminates frustrating delays when opening large mailbox files and frees office workers to focus on important business tasks. The 2007 Office system SP1 makes it easier to open large offline folder files (.ost) and personal folder files (.pst) that are located directly on the user’s machine.

PowerPoint 2007

• Users who have started an event macro in Office PowerPoint 2007 can now advance slides by right-clicking and then choosing Next or Previous.
• When users try to open a presentation in Office PowerPoint 2007 from a Web site using forms authentication, the presentation will now appear properly.
• Users can now open presentations in Office PowerPoint 2007 from e-mail attachments in Office Outlook Web Access.
• Office PowerPoint 2007 no longer crashes when the user programmatically accesses the parent property of the Hyperlinks Collection Object in the Office PowerPoint 2007 object model.
• Text formatting now behaves similarly to previous versions of PowerPoint, where new text retains the formatting of the deleted text instead of using the formatting of the character to the left.

Project 2007 and Project Server 2007

• Office Project 2007 no longer crashes when users click to view Windows account or Details in the Resources Information dialog box and then perform any other action.
• Office Project 2007 does not produce an error message when a link from one task accesses a task in a different project stored on Office Project Server 2007. This error only occurred when the linked project was renamed.
• Microsoft Office Project Web Access now makes task IDs available and allows users to enter a work estimate when creating a new task.
• When adding multiple values to a lookup table in Microsoft Office Project 2007, the application no longer searches for duplicate values in a way that unexpectedly slows performance. Also, users can now quickly retrieve lists of projects from a Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 database.

SharePoint Server 2007

• Office SharePoint Server 2007 now has the ability to be installed on Windows Server 2008 providing compatibility and support.
• ASP.NET AJAX has compatibility and support with Office SharePoint Server 2007 including examples for customer web parts build the AJAX 1.0 Control Toolkit and the AJAX 1.0 Extensions for ASP.NET (KB 941955)
• New manageability with STSADM commands for consolidating or repartitioning your content databases, renaming host named site collections, and the ability to scope the people picker to a specific active directory organizational unit.
• Advanced search results now include results with spaces in file names.
• The View by Modified Date function now works correctly in search results.
• Office SharePoint Server 2007 is now able to crawl case-sensitive Web content on computers not running the Windows® operating system.
• Office SharePoint Server 2007 can now index a public folder on a Microsoft Exchange Server with a backslash in the subject.
• With the 2007 Office system SP1, the performance of Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007 improves general server activities and search functionality. An Office SharePoint Server that experiences heavy use no longer slows when a Microsoft .NET Framework hotfix (greater or equal to build 2.0.50727.832) is installed. The service pack also helps reduce the lag time before the start of a document library crawl during a document search in SharePoint.

Visio 2007

• Microsoft Office Visio® 2007 now properly redraws shapes when users apply a dynamic connector that is part of a group of shapes in Office Visio 2007.

Word 2007

• With Office Word 2007, users can now open and edit embedded objects that contain other embedded objects.
• When using smart documents in Office Word 2007, the Document Actions task pane no longer disappears when moving the pointer into the Reviewing pane. Additionally, task panes opened earlier no longer appear unexpectedly.
• Office Word 2007 properly creates and updates a table of contents in unprotected sections of documents that also contain sections protected for forms.
• Office Word 2007 no longer prints an extra page when users choose a printer with the duplex option enabled.

For more detailed list of all issues fixed by the Office 2007 Service Pack 1, download this Excel workbook.