Microsoft Releases Office 2000 SP3

If you haven’t updated Microsoft Office applications recently or installed the most recent security hotfixes, you need to upgrade your systems. On October 21, Microsoft released Office 2000 Service Pack 3 (SP3) in two forms: an online update and an administrative download. The SP3 rollup installs 14 security hotfixes, including the important Microsoft Outlook extended email security update, two previously released updates for Microsoft Word (including the October 16 patch), Office 2000 SP2, and more reliable automatic error reporting. Here are a few hints that will ensure your upgrade goes smoothly.

Online Upgrade
If you need to update only a few systems, you can do so at the Office Product Updates site. The first time you use this method, the update page downloads the Office Detection Wizard, which analyzes the current installation and builds a catalog of files that are appropriate for your configuration. The wizard then starts Windows Installer, which prompts you for the original distribution. On my test system, the wizard downloaded and completed an 8.6MB upgrade in just a few minutes and didn't request or force a reboot.

If you check the Office Help, About information after the installation, you’ll see this upgrade changes the Office version to SP3. As is standard with Office updates, SP3 isn't removable and doesn't appear in the Add/Remove Programs list. The only way you can revert to an earlier version is to uninstall Microsoft Office, reinstall the original release, and then apply an earlier service release like SR-1a

Administrative SP3 Upgrade
If you prefer to roll out complete updated images rather than distribute SP3 upgrade files; if you need to update multiple Office versions, such as small business, standard, and developer editions; or if you need the multilanguage pack, you need the full administrative update. You can use the Microsoft Office 2000 Resource Kit Toolbox to download this version, or you can go to http://download.microsoft.com/download/office2000/sp/3/win98mexp/en-us/o2ksp3a.exe. The hefty 59.5MB o2ksp3.exe file is a self-extracting executable that contains three Windows Installer patch files. You’ll find instructions on the recommended method for building an administrative sharepoint at the bottom of this page, http://office.microsoft.com/downloads/2000/o2ksp3.aspx, plus windows installer commands (i.e., msiexec) and arguments you can use to update individual components. Office XP and Office 2000 downloads for multiple languages are found on the Microsoft Office XP Resource Kit page at http://www.microsoft.com/office/ork/xp/appndx/appb00.htm.