Microsoft has released service pack 2 for Office 2010. Now to slipstream it into the Office 2010 install media. As of publishing, Microsoft has not released install media for Office 2010 with Service Pack 2 included on its Volume Licensing Service Center. Fortunately, it’s a pretty easy process to update the install media.
Download Service Pack 2 for Microsoft Office 2010: 32-bit edition | 64-bit edition
Once you have the executable downloaded, we need to extract the files from within. I like using 7-Zip and simply right-clicking the file and choosing to extract to a folder. The other pre-requisite is to have a copy of your install media available. You can either extract those files from an ISO, say if you downloaded it from the VLSC, or copy the files from the installation DVD.
You then simply copy the extracted SP2 files, which consists of .msp, .xml, and .txt files, and paste them into the Updates folder from the Office 2010 installation media. You can either copy that folder to a server share or burn it to a DVD.
On your next install from the updated media, you can check that the software is being updated. Go to the File tab, Help, and under ‘About Microsoft Word’ click the ‘Additional Version and Copyright Information’ link. This will open a window and you should see similar to below with ‘Microsoft Word 2010 (14.0.7015.1000) SP2 MSO. (The version number may change with future updates.)
This process also works for other updates provided from Microsoft in the .msp file format. Just copy them into the Updates folder.
If you have previously used the Office Customization Tool with the /admin switch on Setup.exe and you still have the _custom.msp file in the Updates folder, you should be all set. Otherwise, you can just run the Office Customization Tool again to configure any install presets you wish to configure.
On the related support article, the following improvements are detailed as resulting from SP2:
Excel 2010 SP2
- Improves the overall stability, performance, and compatibility with other versions of Excel. For a more detailed list of specific issues that the service pack fixes, please download a version of the workbook that is available below.
- Fixes issues in which the performance of Excel decreases, and Excel file sizes become larger when additional built-in styles are copied during the duplication of data between different Excel instances.
- Fixes an issue in which data validation lists that contain comma signs (,) are broken in an .xlsx or .xlsb file. This issue occurs when you set the user locale to a location that does not use comma signs (,) to separate the lists. For example, Germany uses semicolons (;) to separate the lists. When you set Germany as the location, data validation lists that contain commas are all broken.
- Fixes an issue in which an .xlsx file created in Microsoft Office 2013 that contains an App bound to a table is corrupted on save. Additionally, it addresses the issue in which all Agave formulas in the workbook sheet are removed from the file.
Outlook 2010 SP2
- Fixes the issue regarding the message size of certain long email messages. Additionally, it fixes an issue that occurs when you perform a spell check before you send an email message.
PowerPoint 2010 SP2
- Improves the quality of videos in a presentation after the videos are optimized or compressed by PowerPoint.
- Fixes issues that occur when you co-author a presentation with other users at the same time.
- Fixes an issue in which Mozilla FireFox crashes when you try to view a presentation in PowerPoint Web App on a Mac computer that has Microsoft Silverlight 3 or Silverlight 4 installed.
Word 2010 SP2
- Fixes issues regarding bookmarks, fields, track changes, templates, tables, object wrapping, autocorrect options, and email addresses. Additionally, it fixes general reliability issues that occur when you post a blog entry on Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 and Microsoft Office 365 blogs.
You can approve the Office 2010 SP2 update through WSUS as well. Next, it will be onto upgrading computers to Office 2013.