Windows SharePoint Services Service Pack 2 Released
It's here! It's here! Just wanted to let you know that WSS SP 2 is now available on the Microsoft Download Center. You can find the direct download link here.
The WSS SP 2 release has substantial supportability improvements including:
- Support for running on 64-bit machines in 32-bit emulation mode
- Support for Reverse Proxy and Alternate URL support
- Support for IP Bound virtual servers
- Support for off-box SSL termination
- Support for SQL Server 2005
- Support for ASP.NET 2.0
Everyong running WSS and SPS are encouraged to update to WSS SP 2. However, although SPS SP1/RTM will be able to run on top of WSS SP2, Microsoft is restricting support for the "shared" functionality that is added in SP2 for SPS and WSS until SPS SP2 ships. The shared functionality is the support improvements above.
In other words, even though you'll be able to install WSS SP2 on SPS SP1/RTM installs, you still need to wait for SPS SP2 before utilizing any of the newly-supported functionality above.
Some useful KB articles related to this release:
- Issues that are fixed in SP2
- Description of WSS SP2
- Guidance for deploying WSS SP 2 including the new SP 2 version number
- This KB article has been updated to reflect that SP 2 now enables Kerberos out of box. The one main addition in the article is how to switch back to to NTLM if you accidentally chose Kerberos and it was not what you wanted. If you chose Kerberos and did not configure the SPN then your users will not be able to autheticate to the SharePoint site.
- When switching a WSS virtual server from ASP.NET 1.0 to ASP.NET 2.0 you need to run an stsadm operation to update web.config for new ASP.NET 2.0 security settings
The Windows SharePoint Services Administration Guide will be updated later in the day today. Make sure to download the latest copy so that you have instructions for using the new WSS SP 2 feature functionality.
Windows SharePoint Services SP 2 will also ship in Windows Server R2. Additional documentation about the new SP 2 features is included in this walkthrough document.
Thanks to Gabe Bratton for this information and Microsoft for this very cool release. Get yours today before they're all gone. Operators are standing by!
Update (14:26 MST): Added links to the KB articles with a description of the Service Pack and what issues it fixes. These are now online for your consumption. Enjoy!
Update (23:18 MST): Microsoft is also (officially) supporting FireFox 1.0.4 (and later) with this SP2 for WSS. Sweet!