Office 2003's first service pack fixes security and reliability bugs and delivers new capabilities for the InfoPath forms application. Office 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1) also includes fixes for the FrontPage 2003 Web design product, which is sold separately from the Office suite. Microsoft also lowered the price of its OneNote note-taking application and released an update that improves integration with Outlook and adds new capabilities for collaboration.

New Features Mainly for InfoPath

Office 2003 SP1 delivers an integration-tested collection of all previous Office 2003 patches. Among the bugs fixed: a security problem in Crystal Reports (which ships with Business Contact Manager, an optional application in Office 2003 Small Business Edition) that permits an attacker to retrieve and delete files on some computers. Also fixed is a problem with embedded drawings in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint that can corrupt files. The service pack repairs several bugs for which there are no published patches, such as a problem that can prevent the PowerPoint 2003 viewer from opening PowerPoint 2000 files.

SP1 delivers few new features, other than for InfoPath. New InfoPath features include the following:

• To prevent accidental data loss, developers can now specify when and how forms are automatically saved
• Handwritten input can be converted to text on Tablet PC
• Several InfoPath controls now can offer different classes of users different options; for example, an expense report form might offer a manager the option of approving the report
• InfoPath forms can be exchanged as e-mail attachments (among users who have InfoPath installed).

SP1 is also a prerequisite for the InfoPath 2003 Toolkit for Visual Studio .NET, released separately, which enables developers to use languages such as C# and VB.NET to extend InfoPath forms.

Service Pack, New Price for OneNote

OneNote SP1 delivers a variety of new capabilities, including the following:

• Recording and playback of video synchronized with notes
• Importing of appointments from Outlook 2003 and creation of Outlook 2003 appointments and contacts in OneNote
• Saving of notes to Windows SharePoint Services sites
• Peer-to-peer sharing and real-time collaborative editing of note pages and sections
• Adding titles in notebook page tabs.

The estimated retail price of OneNote has dropped to US$99. The product formerly cost US$199 at retail, although users could get it for US$99 in specific regions and through mail-in rebate offers.

Deployment Notes and Resources

Organizations should note that Office 2003 SP1 cannot be uninstalled. The service pack is available in multiple versions, including a minimal (18MB) package that requires access to the original Office 2003 media, and a 74MB package that includes all required files and is suitable for deployment with Systems Management Server. Windows Installer patch (MSP) files are also available for updating network installation points.

Users of the OneNote SP1 Preview must uninstall the preview before installing OneNote SP1.

Office 2003 SP1 documentation and links to downloads are at support.microsoft.com/?kbid=842532.

System administrator information on Office updates is at www.microsoft.com/office/ork/updates/default.htm.

OneNote 2003 SP1 documentation and downloads are at support.microsoft.com/?kbid=842774.

New InfoPath SP1 features and the Visual Studio toolkit are explained in "InfoPath to Support Managed Code" on page 22 of the Apr. 2004 Update.

New OneNote features in SP1 are outlined in "OneNote Service Pack Adds Features" on page 26 of the July 2004 Update.