Microsoft Releases Office 2013 SP1 – Have you Updated Yet?

Microsoft released the first service pack for its Office 2013 suite back in February via its auto-update service. The update provides a lot of bug fixes as well as general stability and functionality updates. To ensure you have the update, take a look in Programs and Features in the control panel and confirm the version for Office 2013 is 15.0.4569.1506.

The update for Microsoft’s latest Office suite (a suite which we’ve covered extensively here on groovyPost) should already be installed on your computer, provided Windows Update is set to download and install updates automatically. If it isn’t, you can always check for the update yourself – here’s how to do it in Windows 8.

Regarding what’s new, don’t expect anything too spectacular. The Office 2013 SP1 is aimed at improving stability functionality and security in both Office and SharePoint Server, as well as in products it interacts with. That’s why, while you may not notice visible changes, you might realize that things are working better and are much more stable. For example, some of the stability fixes included are for Windows 8.1 and Internet Explorer 11 and some modern hardware has better support (Microsoft mentions high DPI devices and the precision touchpad).

So just a quick update to take a look and grab the update if you don’t already have it installed.

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.

A detailed list of SP1 fixes is available for download. Additionally, SP1 includes all the Public Updates (PU) and Cumulative Updates (CU) that have been released since the 2013 family of products first became available, up to the December 2013 CU and January 2014 PU. These are listed in the following KB articles:

• Security and Non-Security Updates for January 2014 – Released January 14, 2014
• Office 2013 December 2013 Cumulative Update (KB 2912738) – Released December 10, 2013
• Security and Non-Security Updates for December 2013 (KB 2916204) – Released December 10, 2013
• Security and Non-Security Updates for November 2013 – Released November 12, 2013
• Office 2013 October 2013 Cumulative Update – Released October 8, 2013
• Security and Non-Security Updates for October 2013 – Released October 8, 2013
• Security and Non-Security Updates for September 2013 – Released September 10, 2013
• Office 2013 August 2013 Cumulative Update – Released August 13, 2013
• Non-Security Updates for August 2013 – Released August 13, 2013
• Security and Non-Security Updates for July 2013 – Released July 9, 2013
• Office 2013 June 2013 Cumulative Update – Released June 11, 2013
• Security and Non-Security Updates for June 2013 – Released June 11, 2013
• Security and Non-Security Updates for May 2013 – Released May 14, 2013
• Office 2013 April 2013 Cumulative Update – Released April 9, 2013
• Security and Non-Security Updates for April 2013 – Released April 9, 2013
• Security and Non-Security Updates for March 2013 – Released March 12, 2013
• Office 2013 February 2013 Cumulative Update – Released February 12, 2013
• Non-Security Updates for February 2013 – Released February 12, 2013
• Security and Non-Security Updates for January 2013 – Released January 8, 2013
• Security and Non-Security Updates for December 2012 – Released December 11, 2012