Home United States USA — software Office 365: A guide to the updates

Office 365: A guide to the updates

183
0
SHARE

Get the latest info on new features, bug fixes, and security updates for Office 365/Microsoft 365 for Windows as they roll out from Microsoft. Now updated for Version 2204 (Build 15128.20224), released on May 10, 2022.
Office 365 and Microsoft 365 subscribers get more frequent software updates than those who have purchased Office without a subscription, which means subscribers have access to the latest features, security patches, and bug fixes. But it can be hard to keep track of the changes in each update and know when they’re available. We’re doing this for you, so you don’t have to. Following are summaries of the updates to Office 365/Microsoft 365 for Windows, with the latest releases shown first. We’ll add info about new updates as they’re rolled out. This build fixes several bugs, including one that caused Excel to consume excessive memory, one in Word in which in which a document scrolled to the end after deleting a paragraph mark, and an issue with rendering in Excel and Project when using certain older versions of Windows 11. It also offers a security update for Excel and one for the entire Office suite. For details, see Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates. Get more info about Version 2204 (Build 15128.20224). This build reduces unwanted fragmenting of conditional formatting rules in Excel, and also improves Power BI dataset request access from Excel. It also fixes several bugs, including one in Access that prevented Outlook event-based add-ins from functioning properly, one that caused Outlook to close unexpectedly during launch when connected to a OneDrive for Business endpoint with no service URL, and one for the entire Office suite in which the font drop-down would not accurately reflect what font was selected in a shape. Get more info about Version 2204 (Build 15128.20178). This build fixes three bugs, one in Access that prevented Outlook Event-Based Add-Ins from functioning properly, one in Outlook that caused EU users to see information missing from person cards, and another in Outlook that caused users to experience a “stop responding” when responding to certain contacts. (Get more info about Version 2203 (Build 15028.20228). This build fixes several bugs, including one in Outlook in which the “Move to Other” functionality stopped working properly, and another for the entire Office suite in which the font drop-down would not accurately reflect what font was selected in a shape. It also offers security updates for Excel. For details, see Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates. Get more info about Version 2203 (Build 15028.20204). This build introduces one new feature, a navigation pane for Excel that lets you see the layout of your workbook at a glance and navigate through its elements quickly. The build also fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in Excel in which using custom command bars could cause Excel to crash, one in Outlook that caused the “Index out of date” message to display too often, one in Word that caused a performance issue when opening Word documents with thousands of track changes, and one for the entire Office suite that caused contact cards to display improperly Get more info about Version 2203 (Build 15028.20160). This build fixes several bugs, including one in Outlook that caused users to experience performance issues when switching folders due to a corrupt view setting. It also offers security updates for Visio and Word. For details, see Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates. Get more info about Version 2202 (Build 14931.20132). This build offers a wide variety of new features, including one in Excel that disables Excel 4.0 (XML) macros by default to improve security; one in Word that lets you proofread selected text with Editor; one in Outlook that lets you visualize and explore your company’s internal structure, work teams, and individual roles; and one on PowerPoint that lets you pre-record video with animation. It also has many new Teams features, including enabling Teams app developers to test their monetized apps within Teams clients, and the addition of a new compact view in Chat. Many bugs were also fixed, including one in Outlook in which the folder hierarchy did not synchronize all folders for very large primary mailboxes with more than 100,00 folders, and another in Word in which SVG images that contain external content weren’t showing up. Get more info about Version 2202 (Build 14931.20120). This build fixes a single bug in Access that caused errors while running an application. Get more info about Version 2201 (Build 14827.20198). This build fixes several bugs, including one in which people could not save their files in Project. It also offers security updates for Excel, Visio, and the entire Office suite. For details, see the Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates. Get more info about Version 2201 (Build 14827.20192). This build includes a variety of feature updates, including easier scrolling through Excel spreadsheets that are large or that have very wide cells, new Cortana features for Teams, and an improved address book search in Outlook. A number of bugs were fixed, including one in Outlook that caused applications to become unresponsive after loading a contact card, one in Word in which “Repeat style” applies Normal instead of repeating the style, and another in Access that caused the Insights add-in to stop working intermittently. Get more info about Version 2201 (Build 14827.20158). This build includes a variety of bugs and performance fixes. Get more info about Version 2112 (Build 14729.20260). This build fixes a bug in Excel in which shapes and form controls could not call VBA macros. It also offers security updates for two Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerabilities. For details, see “ Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates.” Get more info about Version 2112 (Build 14729.20248). This build offers a variety of new features, including the ability to track only your own changes in Word when collaborating, an improved way to search Outlook’s calendar, and several new features in Teams, including one that lets you “raise your hand” virtually to let people know you want to contribute without interrupting the conversation. It also fixes a variety of bugs, including one in Access that caused an application to close unexpectedly when connection to an Access or Jet database using multiple threads, and one in Outlook that caused users to see garbled text in some fields when exporting contacts to a CSV. Get more info about Version 2112 (Build 14729.20194). This build fixes two bugs, one in Access that prevented multiple users from opening a database on a network file share, and for the entire Office suite related to refreshing elements that may contain text. Get more info about Version 2111 (Build 14701.20262). This build fixes a variety of bugs, including one in Excel in which opening an XLSM file in the SpreedsheetCompare tool sometimes caused the tool to stop responding, and one in which the teaching callouts (tips) about the new look of Office did not appear in Outlook. It also offers security updates for Excel and the entire Office suite. For details, see Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates. Get more info about Version 2111 (Build 14701.20248). This build fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in Excel in which newly created PivotTables could lose custom settings if the data source range was changed; another in PowerPoint and Word in which some pop-up UI elements could not be clicked, such as the Join Meeting pop-up in Outlook or the Welcome Back pop-up in PowerPoint; and another in Project in which some projects would close unexpectedly when loading customized reports. Get more info about Version 2111 (Build 14701.20226). Get more info about Version 2110 (Build 14527.20312). This build fixes a variety of bugs, including one in Excel in which when opening linked tables to Dynamics, numbers may appear as small squares when the data is displayed, and one in Project in which when tasks are rescheduled, manually scheduled tasks may be scheduled earlier than they should be. It also offers security updates for Excel, Word, and the entire Office suite. For details, see Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates. Get more info about Version 2110 (Build 14527.20276). This build fixes several small bugs, including one in Outlook, PowerPoint, and Word in which each app stopped responding when drawing an image. Get more info about Version 2110 (Build 14527.20234). This build includes a wide variety of new features, including several dozen in Teams, ranging from making Live Transcript available for web users of Teams meetings, a new Question & Answer application for Teams webinars & meetings, and allowing people to join meetings in other clouds anonymously from the Teams desktop app. Several Office bugs were also fixed, including one in Excel in which a query update caused Excel to stop responding, and one in Outlook that caused a sync failure to occur when generating a preview. Get more info about Version 2110 (Build 14527.20226). This build offers a variety of unnamed bug fixes and performance fixes. Get more info about Version 2109 (Build 14430.20306). This build offers security updates for Excel, Visio, Word, and the entire Office suite. For details, see Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates. Get more info about Version 2109 (Build 14430.20298). This build fixes a bug in Outlook that caused some users to experience a stop responding when attempting to retrieve AutoDiscover settings. Get more info about Version 2109 (Build 14430.20270). This build introduces more than a dozen new Teams features, including one in which you can now define a default number of days to keep Teams meeting recordings saved to OneDrive and SharePoint before they are automatically deleted, and the introduction of the Network Planner for government clouds to help you determine and organize network requirements for connecting Microsoft Teams users across an organization. It also fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in Excel, Word, and PowerPoint in which some users could not export documents to PDF or XPS formats, and another in Word in which the insert online video button was disabled. Get more info about Version 2109 (Build 14430.20234). This build fixes a single small bug and includes security updates. The bug fixed is one that caused a loss of HTML formatting when a draft of an email was saved to disk. The security updates are for Access, Excel, Visio, Word, and the entire Office suite. For details, see Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates. Get more info about Version 2108 (Build 14326.20404). This build fixes several bugs, including one in Excel in which not all columns appeared when linking to or importing from a Dynamics table, one in Outlook that caused Room Finder to fail to load, and one in Word in which the print preview was not loading when using Print. Get more info about Version 2108 (Build 14326.20348). This build introduces many new features for Microsoft Teams, including the ability for meeting participants to transfer calls between desktop and mobile, a “top hits” section added to the top of search autosuggestions, and live captions being made available to users accessing Teams meetings via the web. The build also fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in which connecting to a data source from within the PowerPivot window in Excel was not working, one that crashed Outlook while email was being composed, one in Word in which the Insert Online Video button was disabled, and one for the entire Office suite in which some documents failed to load after using some web add-ins. Get more info about Version 2108 (Build 14326.20238). This build fixes a variety of small bugs and includes security updates. Among the bugs fixed are one in Excel that caused some linked Dynamics tables to stop responding and one in multiple Office apps in which document exports to PDF or XPS formats stopped responding due to recent updates. The security updates are for Word and the entire Office suite. For details, see Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates. Get more info about Version 2107 (Build 14228.20250). This build fixes two bugs in Outlook. One caused emails resent by a different user to appear to have been sent by the original sender in organizations that enable Send From Alias. The other caused users to see duplicate time entries in the end meeting time drop-down when the start of the meeting and the end of the meeting were on different dates. Get more info about Version 2107 (Build 14228.20226). This build offers several minor new features and fixes a variety of bugs. Among the new features are one in which you can use the Immersive Reader in Outlook to create custom text spacing, page colors, column width, and line focus, and another in PowerPoint adds Flipgrid video support. Among the bugs fixed are one Word in which comment cards next to the Word canvas were the incorrect size, and one in which Outlook crashed for some people when performing searches. Get more info about Version 2107 (Build 14228.20204). This build fixes several small bugs in Outlook, including one that caused some users to experience an unexpected close when Outlook was collecting diagnostic information, and another that caused Cloud Settings users to experience an unexpected close when an incompletely configured account was present in the profile. Get more info about Version 2106 (Build 14131.20332). This build fixes a variety of small bugs and includes security updates. Among the bugs fixed are one in Outlook that caused some systems to crash while retrieving service-powered search suggestions, and one for the entire Office suite related to instability during DirectX device loss and recovery situations. The security updates are for Excel, Word, and the entire Office suite. For details, see Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates. Get more info about Version 2106 (Build 14131.20320). This build introduces several new minor features for Outlook, including one that includes the most relevant files related to your search when you type in the Search box, and another alerts you if any suspicious sign-in activity is detected and tells you when and where you last signed into your account. It also fixes a variety of small bugs, including one in Outlook that disabled translation options for some people, and one in PowerPoint in which people couldn’t to enter credentials into a Windows Security dialog to open a file, because a PowerPoint dialog box obstructed it. Get more info about Version 2106 (Build 14131.20278). This build fixes several small bugs, including one in Outlook that caused users to experience an unexpected property change prompt when closing a message they had replied to or forwarded, and other for the entire Office suite in which Office crashed when reopening certain files. Get more info about Version 2105 (Build 14026.20308). This build fixes a variety of small bugs and includes security updates. Among the bugs fixed are one in Excel in which extra entries appeared in the Excel Add-in list for some users, one in Outlook that caused it to close when interacting with Outlook Mail or Calendar Views, and one for the entire Office suite that caused a performance regression on opening SyncBacked files. The security updates are for Access, Excel, Outlook, and the entire Office suite. For details, see Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates. Get more info about Version 2105 (Build 14026.20270). This build includes nearly two dozen new features in Teams: anonymous users can join a Live Event so that they can present during the event, webinars can be scheduled and delivered for up to 1,000 people at a time, and users can create group chats that include people external to their organization who use Teams. Word, Excel and PowerPoint now allow documents encrypted with sensitivity labels to be AutoSaved and co-authored with others in real time. (Unencrypted documents have this feature already.) There are also a wide variety of resolved issues, including fixing a bug in Word in which the Editor Pane didn’t open, and one in PowerPoint in which the Reuse Slides option was not available for some users. Get more info about Version 2105 (Build 14026.20246). This build fixes two issues with Outlook, one that caused the people picker in Outlook to expand upward rather than downward for users with a perpetual license, and another that caused the feedback option to fail to appear for users of the Office Perpetual 2021 preview. Get more info about Version 2104 (Build 13929.20386). This build fixes a variety of small bugs and includes security updates. Among the bugs fixed are one in which a major version build rollback could result in crashes when opening files in Excel, Word, and PowerPoint, and one that caused Word to unexpectedly close when the user logged off or restarted their computer. The security updates are for Access, Excel, Word, and the entire Office suite. For details, see Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates. Get more info about Version 2104 (Build 13929.20372). This build offers a variety of feature updates, including the addition of new linked data types in Excel, improved collaboration and a dark mode in Word, a set of ready-made graphics in Visio, and the ability to create an out-of-office message in Teams. There are also a variety of bug fixes, including for one in Excel in which some automation add-ins for Excel couldn’t load, another in Excel that caused users to see signatures disappear unexpectedly, one in Project in which users were unable to remove projects from the resource pool, and one in Word in which some texts weren’t visible when using the dark mode theme in reading mode. Get more info about Version 2104 (Build 13929.20296). This build fixes several small bugs throughout Office and includes security updates. Among the bugs fixed are ones in Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Word that caused a resource contention issue when drawing an image. The security updates are for Excel, Outlook, Word, and the entire Office suite. For details, see Microsoft’s Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates. Get more info about Version 2103 (Build 13901.20400). This build fixes a bug in Outlook in which a component of Outlook used by MAPI-enabled applications on computers with ARM processors caused searches to fail or put extra load on the computer as background apps restarted repeatedly. Get more info about Version 2103 (Build 13901.20336). This build offers several new features, including getting meeting suggestions when you search for someone in Outlook; being able to send a copy of email messages or conversations, including attachments, from Outlook into Teams chats and channels; and drafting documents with your voice in Word. In addition, a number of bugs were resolved, including fixing an issue that crashed Outlook when it was syncing folder hierarchy changes, and fixing a bug in Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Word in which disabled commands in the Office Ribbon would only have the icon grayed out but not the text in Dark Gray Office Theme. Get more info about Version 2103 (Build 13901.20312). This build fixes several bugs, including one in Outlook that caused users of the Cloud Settings feature to see customized settings overridden by default setting after configuring Outlook on a new device, and one in Word in which typing at the end of a hidden paragraph cased Word to hang. Get more info about Version 2102 (Build 13801.20360). This build fixes several small bugs with Outlook and includes security updates. Among the bugs fixed are one that in which newly added calendars didn’t appear in the navigation pane until after Outlook had been restarted, and one in Word in which Narrator skipped over paragraphs. The security updates are for Excel, PowerPoint, Visio, and the entire Office suite. For details, see Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates. Get more info about Version 2102 (Build 13801.20294). This build introduces a number of new features. In Excel, you can now unhide multiple sheets at a time, and you can also resize Conditional Formatting dialogs. Outlook gets an updated Contacts view list. Teams lets you send “reactions” to others during meetings. In addition, you can add a channel to a calendar tab. Excel, PowerPoint, and Word now require that users apply sensitivity labels to documents if their organization’s policy requires it. The build also fixes a number of issues. In Excel, an issue was fixed that prevented users from exporting an Excel workbook to PDF. In Outlook, an issue was fixed that caused users to see duplicate calendar groups appearing after creating a new group. In Word, an issue was fixed in resolving conflicts while in coauthoring. Get more info about Version 2102 (Build 13801.20266). This build fixes several bugs, including one in which Outlook sometimes closed unexpectedly when users were doing a search, and another in Outlook that caused mails to be sent as digitally signed after the user unchecked that option. It also fixes two bugs for the entire Office suite, including one related to media controller event notifications and another related to media player engine timing. Get more info about Version 2101 (Build 13628.20448). This build fixes several issues with Outlook and includes security updates for Excel. Among the Outlook bugs fixed are one that caused Cloud Settings users to experience a hang when updating settings, and another that caused issues with displaying the correct default signature in OWA. The security updates fixed three Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerabilities. For details, see the release notes for Microsoft Office security updates. Get more info about Version 2101 (Build 13628.20380). This build offers a variety of new features, including allowing government customers to apply sensitivity labels to documents and emails in Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Word. It also automatically sends audit data about that sensitivity labeling to Microsoft 365 administrators. Additionally, in Outlook, you can now delete conversations based on message owners. There are also a variety of bug fixes, including for a bug in which Excel would fail to launch or close unexpectedly if certain Windows Security exploit protection settings (SimExec, CallerCheck) were in use, another in which Outlook closed unexpectedly in certain search scenarios, and another in Project in which borders weren’t showing up for tasks in the Team Planner view. Get more info about Version 2101 (Build 13628.20274). This build fixes a handful of bugs, including one in Outlook that caused users that have Shared or Delegated Mailboxes with large hierarchies in their profile to encounter hangs, and other that caused Outlook to close unexpectedly in certain search scenarios. Get more info about Version 2012 (Build 13530.20440). This build fixes two bugs, one in which Excel would fail to launch or close unexpectedly if certain Windows Security exploit protection settings (SimExec, CallerCheck) were in use, and another in Outlook that caused an edited signature to fail to save after prompting the user to do so. There are also a variety of security fixes for Excel, Word, and the entire Office suite. Get more info about Version 2012 (Build 13530.20376). This build lets you change your Outlook settings in the cloud, such as for Automatic Replies, Focused Inbox, and Privacy, and have them available on all of your PCs. PowerPoint gets a new feature called Presenter Coach that helps you helps you prepare to give more effective presentations. There are also a variety of bug fixes, including for a bug in Outlook that caused some people to encounter a hang while loading their calendar, and another in PowerPoint in which fonts didn’t properly display inside equations. Get more info about Version 2012 (Build 13530.20316). This minor build fixes three issues, one in which Excel would incorrectly show in the message bar that a new version of a file is available and force the user to save their changes in a copy of the workbook or discard their changes; another in which Excel left macros disabled without prompting when opening an Excel Add-in file containing Excel 4.0 macros; and one for the entire Office suite, in which a file would be opened as NOT SyncBacked when the URL from cache and the URL from OneDrive did not match. Get more info about Version 2011 (Build 13426.20404). This minor fixes a single issue for the entire Office suite in which SaveRequestManagerCam was causing the application to close instead of returning an error. It also has security updates for Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint. Get details here. Get more info about Version 2011 (Build 13426.20332). This minor build fixes several minor issues, including one in Outlook that caused the original attendees of some meetings to receive a cancellation when another attendee forwards the meeting, and another in which installing a newer version of Office over certain older versions caused impaired functionality, such as being unable to use Power Query. Get more info about Version 2011 (Build 13426.20308). This build fixes two minor issues, one that caused problems when copying and pasting an equation from Word to PowerPoint, and another in Word in which document styles were being replaced with other styles from the template. Get more info about Version 2011 (Build 13426.20294). This build offers a variety of minor new features, including the ability to paste SVG files from Office into third-party apps, and being able to switch Office themes automatically to match your Windows 10 theme settings. There are also several bug fixes, including fixing an issue in Outlook that caused the To field to be blank when sending a status report on a task, and one in PowerPoint in which some corrupt PowerPoint files were not opening correctly, even after a document repair operation. Get more info about Version 2011 (Build 13426.20274). This build fixes a handful of minor bugs in Office, including one that broke the MailItem. BeforeAttachmentAdd event in Outlook, and one that affected the entire Office suite in which Save As would fail in certain scenarios. Get more info about Version 2010 (Build 13328.20408). This build fixes two minor bugs and includes security updates. It fixes an Outlook issue in which users couldn’t grant Editor permission to their delegates, and an issue with the entire Office suite in which files that were transitioned from synced to server-only couldn’t be saved.

Continue reading...