Microsoft Admits Office 2003 Service Pack Error

Redmond (WA) - ZDNet UK’s Richard Thurston is reporting that Microsoft has admitted it made a mistake over a security advisory issued in December relating to Office 2003. When SP3 was released, it shut down over a dozen file format converters due to security issues. There was a workaround for users that needed the file format support, but it involved going into the registry manually (a potentially dangerous practice).

Microsoft admitted last Friday that it had made a mistake in issuing the warning. The error was not with the file format converters, but rather with Office 2003 code which was responsible for opening and saving in other file types. Microsoft released four separate downloadable programs for Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Corel Draw file formats. These implement the registry patches for the user without them having to go into the registry manually. Additional downloads are available to reblock the converters.

Microsoft originally introduced the manual registry fix because they believed there were a very few number of users who would be impacted by the change, and they wanted to make it difficult enough to do that only those who really needed it would use it. Microsoft still sees that as the case, but is now admitting their assessment of the cause of the disabling was incorrect.

Read more ... ZDNet UK.