WSUS: Office 2003 SP2 or SP3 components incorrectly report as installed on clients by Windows Server Update Services

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Here's an interested tip from Mike Johnson, one of our top WSUS Support Escalation Engineers out in North Caolina.  If you're seeing phantom Office 2003 components show up where they should then you'll want to take a look at this one:

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Issue: Office 2003 SP2 or Office 2003 SP3 components such as Visio, OneNote, or Project may report as being installed on client computers by the WSUS Administration console even though the client has no such Office 2003 product installed. This can occur when one or more Office 2003 components are installed and Service Pack 3 for those components is not installed.

Cause: A detection logic problem exists in the SP2 and SP3 components referenced above that causes WSUS reporting to indicate that the SP2 or SP3 components are installed on client machines even though no such product Office 2003 product is installed. For example, a client machine with Office 2003 SP2 installed but with none of the following products installed:

• Microsoft OneNote 2003
• Microsoft Project 2003
• Microsoft Visio 2003

may report in the WSUS Administration console that the following SP2 and/or SP3 components are installed:

• OneNote 2003 SP2 or SP3
• Project 2003 SP2 or SP3
• Visio 2003 SP2 or SP3

The reporting results problem may also appear for Office 2007 SP1 related components within the WSUS Administrators console. Administrators are recommended to approve the revisions to Office 2007 SP1 if clients are reporting 2007 SP1 components as installed on client machines when no Office 2007 product is installed.

Resolution: The WSUS detection metadata has been modified for the updates within Office 2003 SP3 to address this detection problem. WSUS Administrators should approve the revisions to Office 2003 SP3 if they have not automatically been approved to get the correct detection and reporting results. WSUS Administrators do not need to apply the revisions to clients as there are no changes to the updates or files within the service pack.

Note: No changes have been made to the updates or files within Office 2003 Service Pack 3; the detection logic has been changed to correctly report within WSUS.

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Thanks Mike!

J.C. Hornbeck | Manageability Knowledge Engineer