After a long wait, SP2 will be available in this morning finally. With this new service pack, you can benefit from performance, stability and availability improvements. IE8 is also put into level 1 support. Meanwhile, SP2 introduces a new stsadm operation preupgradecheck (we also call it Upgrade Checker) to check if the farm can be upgraded to 2010.
It is very important to plan for moving to SP2 since it could be one of the requirements to upgrade to 2010.
Updates Resource Center for SharePoint Products and Technologies on TechNet, www.microsoft.com/sharepoint, Office Sustained Engineering blog and SharePoint Team Blog will be updated once the downloads are available on download center. Please check these resources when they go live for download links and installation guides.
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
Please check KB articles, Office Sustained Engineering blog and SharePoint Team Blog for download links when they go live.
Installation Steps
Please check SharePoint Team Blog and Updates Resource Center for SharePoint Products and Technologies when the articles go live.
Related Resources
About Service Pack 2 for SharePoint Product and Technologies (marketing doc, talks about benefit)
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=148551
Service Pack 2 Overview (TechNet article links, very useful)
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=148374
Updates Resource Center for SharePoint Products and Technologies
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/sharepointserver/bb735839.aspx
The full list of changes in SP2 (Excel 2007 format)
Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP2 Changes
2007 Office Servers SP2 Changes
You can also go to this KB article for a full list of downloads for Office System 2007 SP2 (client & server).
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968170
Quick Q&A
Q: Why is the new STSADM upgrade checker operation important?
A: The upgrade checker is a stsadm operation that scans server farm to establish whether it is ready for upgrade to SharePoint 2010. It does so by identifying issues that could present obstacles to the upgrade process. It provides feedback and best practice recommendations on your current environment, together with information on how to resolve any issues that the tool discovers. It also check operating system requirement for Windows Server 2008 and 64bit.
Q: Which browser will be added into support for SP2 for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0?
A: Internet Explorer 8 will be added into level 1 browser support, and Firefox 2.0/3.0 will be added into level 2 browser support.
Q: Which operating system will be added into support?
A: Windows Server 2008 SP2 and Windows Server 2008 R2 will be supported on their release.
Q: Can customer skip other updates and directly apply SP2 in their server farm?
A: Yes. SP2 includes SP1 and Infrastructure updates.
Q: Will there be a MOSS slipstream build with SP2?
A: There’s no plan for official MOSS slipstream build with SP2. An official slipstream guide will be provided so customers can create their own slipstream build based on their patch needs. WSS with SP2 slipstream builds are provided on download center.
Q: Are we announcing the full system requirement for SharePoint Server 2010 this time?
A: No. The only information we can provide now is Windows Server 2008 and 64 bit.
When are you planning to upgrade? Post to comments.
