The dust has settled around Office 2003 Service Pack 1 and now its possible to make some informed judgments about updating Office 2003.
The dust has settled around Office 2003 Service Pack 1 and now its possible to make some informed judgments about updating Office 2003.
For all the basic details read this article in Office Watch.
As we mentioned last week it’s probably best to update Windows XP to Service Pack 2 first, make sure that’s working OK over a few days then apply Office 2003 Service Pack 1. Some people and certainly Microsoft would say that’s being too cautious but our long and bitter experience of Microsoft updates leads us to suggest caution.
However there’s no doubt that _everyone_ should update their Windows XP to Service Pack 2 – the security benefits of the update are many despite the problems and glitches you’ve heard about.
The Office 2003 SP1 matters may seem like small and pedantic matters but they are important to customers with problems. The continuing difficulties with updating MS Office over many years reflects badly on Microsoft. The company continues to live in a dream world where Office updates go smoothly and so there’s nothing done to make them more reliable and less confusing. The Windows team does a much better job so why can’t the Office team make the effort too?
OFFICE 2003 SP1 ISN’T INSTALLED
It is possible that you installed SP1 but your programs weren’t fully updated!
If you applied the Outlook 2003 Junk email filter listed in MS Knowledge Base article 870765 and installed Office 2003 SP1 with the new Windows Installer 3.0
At this point it gets confusing. The exact circumstances where this can occur differs according to whom you talk to at Microsoft. The KB article says “This problem does not occur if you install the Update for Outlook 2003: Junk E-mail Filter (KB870765) after you install Office 2003 SP1.” however when we asked directly a Microsoft spokesman said it applied only to “Office 2003 users running a beta version of Windows XP SP2 and who downloaded the latest Outlook 2003 Junk Mail Filter on or before Aug. 5, either before or at the same time as downloading the Office 2003 SP1 update”
There’s no mention of the Windows SP2 beta in the public KB article. The August 5 date is also a bit misleading – it assumes that you download and apply the update on the same day, that might be the usual practice but it’s not unheard of for an administrator or support person to download an update then apply it to computers over a period of time. What does ‘before or at the same time’ mean? – you can’t apply two patch simultaneously so one patch has to be applied either before or after another.
Even if Microsoft did get their story straight it assumes you remember the exact order you did things a month ago! This bug is particularly insidious because there’s no error message or warning – just a lurking set of incompatible files.
Among the conflicting information only one thing is certain, that there was some problem between the Office 2003 SP1 update and the now-withdrawn junk mail update. If you did get that junk mail filter then the best thing to do is to play it safe and ‘repair’ Office 2003. This is the recommended fix from Microsoft:
- Click Start, and then click Control Panel.
- Click Add or Remove Programs.
- In the Currently installed programs list, click Microsoft Office program 2003, and then click the Click here for support information link.
- Click Repair.
Note: You may have to insert the original CD-ROM that you used to install Office 2003.
THE CASE OF THE MISSING JUNK MAIL FILTER
Yes, there was an update to the junk-mail filter in Outlook 2003 but it appeared and was withdrawn about a week later. This happened in late July / early August and was detailed in the now withdrawn KB article.
It was removed because of the installation problems listed above. The public notice from Microsoft wasn’t what you’d hope for. Instead of updating the original KB article explaining that the update had been withdrawn, user have to go digging around the Knowledge Base until they find another article that, as we note above, doesn’t exactly glisten with rectitude.
According to Microsoft the junk mail update will be released in the future.
Many thanks to Office Watch reader James L who drew this mystery to our attention.
THE CORRECT VERSION NUMBERS?
Finding out if Office 2003 is up to date is not the simple process it should be. If you think that just going to Help | About and looking at the version number is enough – think again.
Despite years of complaints from customers, Microsoft has taken a step backwards in Office 2003 SP1. The ‘About’ screen does not necessarily assure you that the program is up to date.
Amazingly, customers have to return to the hassles of years past and go poking around the program files themselves to see what is really happening.
Here’s the table from Microsoft of program names and version numbers – we’re assuming this table is correct but can’t guarantee that.
- Excel.exe 11.0.6355.0
- Frontpg.exe 11.0.6356.0
- Infopath.exe 11.0.6357.0
- Msaccess.exe 11.0.6355.0
- Mspub.exe 11.0.6255.0
- Outlook.exe 11.0.6353.0
- Powerpnt.exe 11.0.6361.0
- Winword.exe 11.0.6359.0
We suspect this table isn’t correct because it refers to ‘outlook.exe’ while elsewhere Microsoft says that the version details are held in ‘OutLLib.dll’ . not the .exe file. The version numbers themselves may or may not be right.
To check these numbers find the program file itself, right-click on it and choose Properties then Version.
This nuisance needs to be put in perspective, for most people the exact version details don’t need to concern them. They’ll install SP1 and everything will be fine. But for anyone have trouble with Office 2003, their problem might be a mixup of pre and post SP1 files. Determining what is the version status on your computer is unnecessarily difficult.
Microsoft knew this was a problem years ago – back in 1999 there were similar problems with Office 97. The About screen wasn’t reliable and you had to poke around executables. That mess prompted some changes in later Office updates but now we’re back with the same nonsense again. Microsoft has no long-term corporate memory for anything that might annoy their customers.
PREVIEW REMINDER
A reminder that if you have the preview versions of OneNote or InfoPath, you must remove them from the computer before installing the Office 2003 SP1 update – even if you are only wishing to update the other (non-preview) parts of Office 2003.
OFFICE 2003 SERVICE PACK 1 FOR MULTILINGUAL USER INTERFACE PACK
The SP1 update for the Multilingual User Interface pack has been released. Details here.
This is commendably quick since in the past non-English speaking users have had to wait months for the MUIP updates to appear.
OFFICE 2003 SP1 DOESN’T WORK WITH WINDOWS 98
Some people are saying that Office 2003 SP1 update won’t work with Windows 98 as if that was a bug.
Office 2003 will only work with Windows 2000 and Windows XP – that applied to the original release and SP1. It might be annoying that Office 2003 is limited to recent versions of Windows but it’s hardly a surprise let alone a bug.
POST SP1 BUGS
As usual Microsoft is now coming clean about some bugs in Office that appear after installing SP1. This always happens and is understandable with such complex software. We don’t blame Microsoft for this but it is the reason why we suggest caution and patience when applying SP1 updates.
- “BUG: An error may occur when you try to open signed solutions by using the Open method in Office InfoPath 2003 Service Pack 1″
- “BUG: Button rules may be lost when you move a button in a section from one view to another view by using the cut-and-paste feature in Office InfoPath 2003 Service Pack 1″
These are notable for prominent use of the ‘B’ word if nothing else.
If you’re looking for the Column Size option on the Format menu of OneNote 2003 SP1 then you’ll have to restore it to the menu yourself. See here for instructions.
