Exchange Server Updates Galore: 2007 SP3, 2010 Rollup 4, 2010 SP1 Beta

The Microsoft Exchange Server team has been busy, as witness by the recent release of several important Exchange Server updates. In the last couple weeks, the company has made available Exchange 2007 SP3, Exchange 2010 Update Rollup 4, and the Exchange 2010 SP1 public beta. Just about everybody has something to be testing—or playing with—to improve your messaging environment.

The download for Exchange 2007 SP3 was announced Monday on the Exchange Team Blog. The big news with this update is that it adds support for running Exchange 2007 on Windows Server 2008 R2. You might recall that Microsoft had originally said there would be no such support, but eventually the company added this support to the service pack roadmap due to overwhelming customer feedback. You can get Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 3 from the Microsoft Download Center.

Perhaps a little less exciting is the release of Update Rollup 4 for Exchange 2010, which was announced on the team blog last week. Recall that an Update Rollup generally just gathers all the hotfixes and minor performance improvements that have been released over time, and these releases are cumulative—so Rollup 4 includes everything from the previous 3 rollups as well as all the fixes released since Rollup 3 came out. So, if you're behind on updating your Exchange 2010 servers, now is an excellent chance to catch up. Update Rollup 4 for Exchange Server 2010 is also available from the Download Center. As with all updates, be sure to test in a lab environment before installing to your production servers.

And finally, you probably know by now about the release of the public beta for Exchange 2010 SP1. If you're already using Exchange 2010 or in the planning stages for a migration, you should probably be investigating what this service pack has to offer. By all accounts, some of the changes are quite large—and welcome. The Download Center is also your source for the Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 SP1 Beta. If you're already using the beta, I'd love to hear what you think—what works, what doesn't, what surprised you, what are your favorite new features?