It's Official: SharePoint (MOSS) SP1 is Out the Door

It's officially out. Ooh! Ooh! I'm just dizzy with excitement. Microsoft has released the first SharePoint WSS 3.0 / MOSS 2007 Service Pack. It's all over the web -- and that's right, we've joined the jabbering masses! In case you've been sleeping the last couple of weeks, Microsoft has been sending out secret messages about the eminent release of the first SharePoint Service Pack for both WSS3.0 and SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007. It was rumored to come out this week and here it is - free for the taking! To bring you up to speed, the service pack contains the following items: * A whole wack of hotfixes related either to support issues or just requested from the developer community * some new and not so new STSAdm commands including mergecontentdbs,renamesite and a number of People Picker commands * Compatibility with the AJAX 1.0 Control kit for ASP.Net and the AJAX 1.0 Extensions for ASP.Net to create Webparts for asynchronous post back * The ability to build custom webparts with AJAX * Support for Windows Server 2008 Quite a few goodies in there that we expect will thrill many SharePoint developer and administrator junkies.

How to Get SharePoint SP1

Have a quick read of the official SharePoint team blog where Joel Oleson gives us the basics. Or forget that and head straight to the source and download the Service Pack and the Office SharePoint Server 2007 whitepaper -- it needs a whitepaper (wow!) ...but wait, it's only 4 pages. But hang on. One thing we want to emphasize is that the update should not be blindly applied without previous testing. To quote Microsoft:

It is essential that you understand the appropriate guidance and test out the patch in a separate test environment. For this purpose we have put together a special SP1 page on TechNet to guide you through the process.

WSS 3.0 SP1 Want to read it online? Have a gander at the Support KB, or just look at the list of fixes. MOSS 2007 SP1 Don't forget that you must install the WSS 3.0 Service Pack before you can get knee deep into the MOSS update. You'll find the MOSS info here and here. SharePoint Designer 2007 Yep, that's right, there's a service pack for the Designer too. Left that little piece of info out of the preview didn't they? Well, Happy downloading, safe install, and...in honor of John Conroy, may the force be with you!