Some of the fixes are for bugs already admitted by Microsoft, others are fixes for bugs that the company has not previously acknowledged.

Office 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1) is a collection of fixes for bugs – sorry ‘issues’ – in the various programs that make up Office 2003. If you’re wondering what to do, we recommend you hold off downloading and installing SP1 for a few days or weeks. Microsoft is usually sluggish about posting details of any problems that arise from the Service Pack. Historically Office updates have had some problems with the installation / updating process – once the update is installed the programs usually work OK. In the next issue we will tell you what is really happening, after we’ve had some time to test SP1 and see how it is behaving.

So in this issue we’ll tell you what is supposed to be in SP1 and how you can install it. As regular Office Watch readers know, updates to Office have always been full of, shall we say, surprises for the unwary.

There’s a new update for Office 2003 called Service Pack 1 (SP1 to its friends). We tell you what is supposed to be in SP1 and how you can install it. There’s a new update for Office 2003 called Service Pack 1.

Office 2003 service pack 4