Today we have released the Community Technology Preview (CTP) build of upcoming Exchange 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2). The download can be found here. Please don't miss the Release Notes!

SP2 will offer a huge leap forward in mobility and security capabilities and our customers and partners can now download a pre-release evaluation for testing purposes.  This is an unsupported release that should only be used in lab or testing environments.

Here is a short FAQ about this release:

Q: Is this pre-release evaluation version supported by Microsoft support? 

A: No, this SP2 pre-release evaluation is NOT supported by Microsoft Support Services. We strongly recommend that this build of Exchange 2003 SP2 be used ONLY in your labs and NOT on production machines!

Q: What will be the build number?

A: This Community Technology Preview build number is 7623.

Q: Will all of the new SP2 features/enhancements be available in this version? 

A: Some of the mobility features contained in this CTP download are not yet available for testing, pending availability of Windows Mobile 5.0 devices that have the Messaging & Security Feature Pack installed. Those devices will be available later in 2005 and 2006. Also, some of the security features in SP2 are only available when used with Outlook 2003 SP2 which will not release until later in 2005.  This build is available only in English.

Q: Is this build of SP2 ready to be placed in production?

A: No, the CTP build of SP2 will not display the stability of a shipped Microsoft product. You may encounter problems with Exchange Server 2003 SP2 that could possibly result in a loss or destruction of data. This build should be tested in your labs only!

Q: Okay, I put this build into the lab and found a problem – now what?

A: Please post issues on the Exchange Newsgroups!

If you want to read more about SP2, you can do so by going to our “Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 2 is Coming!” page and don’t forget to check out the FAQ. Additionally, you should check the “Futures” category of this blog, or just click here as we covered many of those features already in our previous blog posts (and have some more coming).