This week is a little light on content (and late) as I spent most of this week in Seattle and most of yesterday in the air. I was planning on taking the week off but I felt the status of the cumulative update was important enough to publish EMO this week.

Clarification on the Feb Cumulative Update

Several people who would benefit by installing the cumulative update told me they were unsure if they should install it “because it’s a hotfix and hotfixes do not have support” or the same level of testing that service packs have.

Yes, you should install it.

The cumulative update underwent the same type of testing normally given to service packs and is fully supported, like every service pack is. It was released ahead of Office SP2 because the Outlook team felt users would benefit greatly from the improvements in performance and reliability now, not weeks from now. The best path for release outside of an SP is as a hotfix, which has led some to be leery of installing it ahead of the "official" SP release.

Bottom line: Admins (or users) should treat this download as they would an SP, not a hotfix. If your policy is to wait to install SPs, then wait; if the policy is to install SPs, go ahead and enjoy the speed.

For more information of the fixes contained in this update, see Outlook 2007 Cumulative Update White Paper:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=968009 

Outlook 2007 update download:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=961752 

Mr. FixIt

Microsoft is rolling out a service called Fixit. When the solution to a problem can be fixed by an automated method (usually involving editing the registry), Microsoft will include the FixIt wizard in the article along with the manual steps. The number of FixIt enabled articles is expected to grow and cover all applications, but at this time most of the FixIt's are for Windows problems with a very limited number of FixIt enabled articles for Outlook and Exchange server. The Fixit wizard is currently in English only but many of the fixes are supported on Office and Windows in other languages.

When a KB offers a prepared fix for the issue described in the article, it will have a Fixit button, as seen in this KB article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951291/ 

To browse the FixIt solution center, visit http://support.microsoft.com/fixit 

Knowledgebase URLs Changing

Once again Microsoft is planning to change the web address of the Knowledgebase - moving developer content to MSDN and IT content to TechNet. All http://support.microsoft.com sites that provide support for IT Professionals and Developers will be directed to TechNet and MSDN. This change was supposed to go into effect this week but all of the articles I checked are all still on support.microsoft.com.

When the move is complete, the new URL format will be:
http://technet.microsoft.com/kb/<article#>
http://msdn.microsoft.com/kb/<article#>

Microsoft has promised to redirect existing links but based on my experience with previous URL changes at Microsoft, the redirects won't last beyond a year or so.

You'll be able to scope the articles in search engines by using either site:technet.microsoft.com/kb or site:msdn.microsoft.com/kb, depending on the type of content you are looking for.

Currently, hotfixes and security updates will remain at support.microsoft.com but they are expected to eventually move to MSDN or TechNet, based on the type of hotfix.