End-of-life Support for Microsoft Office Standard 2003 SP2 & SP3

Hi all

I have checked up the service pack lifecycle support for MS Office 2003
Standard Sp2 on the Microsoft Website. The expiry date is stated as 14 Oct
2008. As for the SP3, I understood that it had end as it is only an 12 month
support from the date of release , which is on 18 Sept 2007.

My question: Why is SP2 having a longer support date than SP3? Hence, it
seems that we should not patch to SP3 since it provides a shorter support?
Appreciate anyone to provide some insights. Thanks.

"Snowbird" <Snowbird@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:301A0406-6E1B-4DD7-8362-3D177C376E14@microsoft.com...
> Hi all
>
> I have checked up the service pack lifecycle support for MS Office 2003
> Standard Sp2 on the Microsoft Website. The expiry date is stated as 14
> Oct
> 2008. As for the SP3, I understood that it had end as it is only an 12
> month
> support from the date of release , which is on 18 Sept 2007.
>
> My question: Why is SP2 having a longer support date than SP3? Hence, it
> seems that we should not patch to SP3 since it provides a shorter support?
> Appreciate anyone to provide some insights. Thanks.


On this page:
http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=2488

There is no date for the retirement of SP3......what page are you looking
at?

Snowbird wrote:

> Hi all
>
> I have checked up the service pack lifecycle support for MS Office 2003
> Standard Sp2 on the Microsoft Website. The expiry date is stated as 14 Oct
> 2008. As for the SP3, I understood that it had end as it is only an 12 month
> support from the date of release , which is on 18 Sept 2007.
>
> My question: Why is SP2 having a longer support date than SP3? Hence, it
> seems that we should not patch to SP3 since it provides a shorter support?
> Appreciate anyone to provide some insights. Thanks.

As gordon said the end of support is not stated. But SP2 is unsupported
after 10/14/2008 less than a month away. Also using your logic, you
would "gain" support time by installing Office XP.

http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifeoffice#Office

Office XP – Microsoft will continue to offer mainstream support for
Office XP through July 11, 2006. The extended support period for Office
XP will last from July 12, 2006 through July 12, 2011.