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SP1 for Exchange Server 2010 Released

• By Kurt Mackie
• 08/25/10

Microsoft today released Service Pack 1 for Exchange Server 2010, which previously was available just as a beta.

Most of the features of SP1 were described earlier, and Microsoft released a beta of the mail server's service pack in June at its Tech-Ed event in New Orleans. This first service pack features improved e-discovery and e-mail management capabilities for IT pros. Those capabilities are enabled, in large part, because Exchange 2010 uses a new "Exchange archive" approach for e-mail storage that differs from the traditional .PST storage approach.

For the detail oriented, Microsoft provides a TechNet library article describing new features enabled by SP1 for Exchange 2010. However, Microsoft also provided comments in a blog post from some of its Technical Adoption Program testers on what they found most valuable in the new service pack.

One of the testers of Exchange 2010 SP1 liked the unified messaging additions, plus audit-logging improvements in the management shell and control panel. Another favored the ability to share calendars, the cross-browser support enabled for Outlook Web Applications and the ability to automatically map shared mailboxes to Outlook 2010 profiles.

Exchange 2010 SP1, which is a 64-bit application, can only be installed on hardware running Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 or Windows Server 2008 R2. The earlier beta release needs to be uninstalled first, according to Microsoft's SP1 release notes. Exchange management tools can be installed on Windows 7 or Windows Vista client PCs.

Microsoft added a new option with this service pack release that lets users install "the required Microsoft Windows operating system roles and features for each selected Exchange 2010 SP1 server role," according to the release notes. Users can upgrade Exchange 2010 using a new an unattended install option, as described in this TechNet document.

The "known issues" associated with this release appear mostly centered on problems with the unified messaging language packs. Audio pronunciations of e-mail messages may get flubbed somewhat by the Japanese and Russian language packs, according to the release notes.

SP1 for Exchange 2010 can be obtained via the Microsoft Download Center here (a 522 MB download).