Office 2013 SP1 Released – How about Click-to-Run?

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Josh Condie - The SP1 updates for the Windows Installer (MSI) versions of the Office 2013 desktop products, and for the SharePoint 2013 server products, are available from the Microsoft Download Center as of February 25th, as well as from Microsoft Update and the Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) catalog. After a 30-day period, SP1 will begin releasing as an automatic update through Microsoft Update.

SP1 for Exchange Server 2013 is also releasing today. Visit the Exchange team blog to learn more about it.

Here is the announcement:  https://blogs.office.com/2014/02/25/office-2013-service-pack-1-now-available/

What’s new in SP1?

SP1 provides fixes to improve general stability, functionality, and security in Office, SharePoint Server, and related products. Among the functionality improvements and changes are the following:

  • Compatibility fixes for Windows 8.1 and Internet Explorer 11.
  • Better support for modern hardware, such as high DPI devices and the precision touchpad.
  • New apps for Office capabilities and APIs for developers.
  • Power Map for Excel, a 3D visualization tool for mapping, exploring, and interacting with geographical and temporal data in Excel, is now available to Office 365 ProPlus subscription customers. You can learn more about Power Map general availability on the Power BI Blog.
  • Improvements to the Click-to-Run virtualization technology that installs and updates Office 365 desktop applications.
  • SkyDrive Pro is now OneDrive for Business.

 

**If you have the Click-to-Run (non-MSI) version of Office, via Office 365 subscription, you will be prompted to update within the next two weeks, or you can follow the instructions on the click-to-run support page to update now.

 

Click-to-Run and Office Updates

By default, Click-to-Run for Office 365 installations are automatically updated. The automatic update process detects and downloads the new data in the background. The updates are installed in the background as soon as the download is completed. However, the installation may be postponed if a resource to be updated is being used by an Office application that is running. In such cases, the updates are automatically applied the next time that the application is cycled or when the application is started by the user.

The updates are kept as small as possible and they download only when changes are required to keep the installation up-to-date. This optimizes network bandwidth use. Updates occur only when the affected Office applications aren’t being used and they don’t require a computer restart.

A version of Office 365 ProPlus that includes each month's updates is available for download from Office 365. Administrators can turn off automatic updates to control which updated builds are deployed and when they are deployed. Monthly updates are recommended. However, some administrators may need additional time to test the updated build in their environment.

A monthly build is available for download from Office 365 for up to one year (12 months). After that, the build is no longer supported. Administrators should check that their Office 365 ProPlus installations use a supported build that contains updates within the last year.

Administrators can configure updates behavior by using the Configuration.xml file for Click-to-Run. The following Updates element attributes are available:

 

  • Enabled   If set to TRUE, Click-to-Run will automatically detect, download, and install updates. This is the default. If Enabled is set to FALSE, Office won’t check for updates and will remain at the installed version.

  • UpdatePath   Can be used to specify a network, local, or HTTP path for a Click-to-Run installation source to use for updates. If UpdatePath isn’t set, or is set to special value “default”, the Microsoft Click-to-Run source on the Internet will be used.

  • TargetVersion   Can be set to a Click-to-Run for Office 365 product build number, for example, 15.1.2.3. When the version is set, Click-to-Run for Office 365 attempts to update to the specified version in the next update cycle. If TargetVersion isn’t set or is set to special value "default," Click-to-Run for Office 365 updates to the latest version advertised at the Click-to-Run source.

For information about Configuration.xml syntax, see Reference for Click-to-Run configuration.xml file.

Josh C.