Redmond officials released a major update to Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies,
the company’s file serving and collaboration software suite, Thursday. The
Service Pack 1 (SP1) releases of Windows SharePoint Services (WSS)
and Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal
Server 2003 (SPS) are available separately.
In addition to improved stability and security, WSS SP1
includes support for larger files, allowing users to save and share documents as large as
2 gigabytes. In addition, WSS SP1 eases the patching process by enabling users to apply patches
and hot fixes, themselves.
SPS users will need to apply the WSS SP1 to download
and apply the SPS SP1, which features improved search functionality in a number of areas,
including crawling reliability, keyword or best-bet search results, alert conditions and
more robust XML filtering. SPS SP1 also includes Content Watson functionality,
which generates a bug report in the event of an error and sends it to Microsoft’s development
team.
Microsoft split its collaboration software into the WSS and SPS components to
provide two distinct levels of support for collaboration projects in the
enterprise.
WSS is tied with Windows Server 2003 to create a virtual
workspace to share documents, have online discussions, conduct polls and
exchange Web pages and calendar items within a domain or
network of Server users.
SPS goes a step further, as it is
a standalone application that acts as a portal to aggregate the different
SharePoint domains on one site. SPS also lets administrators set up
permanent portals and disseminate content based on a person’s role within
the organization.
The service packs come nearly a year after the initial
launch of WSS in October 2003 following a re-branding effort earlier in the year.
Officials warn SharePoint users who deploy both SharePoint technologies to
install SP1 for WSS first before updating SPS.
SharePoint users can download the 4MB WSS update here and SPS’ 11MB update here.
