Sometimes Microsoft works in strange ways.

This paper http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/logredir.aspx?MODE=CT&CTT=ToExternal&target=%2FOffice%2Flogredir.aspx%3FMODE%3DCT%26CTT%3DToExternal%26target%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fgo.microsoft.com%252Ffwlink%252F%253FLinkId%253D105704%2526clcid%253D0x409%26referrer%3 is an example of this.

Theoretically it's a white paper about the recent Service Pack Ones for WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007.

Now I don't know about you, but my understanding of White papers are that they are much longer than the 3 whole (actually more like 2 and a bit) pages taken up by this "white paper".

They also tend not to be a place to announce things. But I'm getting ahead of myself ...

The paper has five sections.

"About Service Pack 1" isn't. It's a very brief list of what's in it and a few links to more information.

"Installation on Windows Server 2008" is also short but does include essential information both about which version of WSS 3.0 you have to use in order to install on the latest (RC1) version of Windows Server 2008 at all and about needing to upgrade to the Windows Internal Database SP2 if you are running the version of WSS 3.0 that uses the included "Windows Internal Database" - something (WID SP2) which, as they point out, isn't out yet!! (Which makes you wonder why they include this confusing piece of information in this version of this "white paper" - at less than 3 full pages it wouldn't be too much effort to write a new version when Windows Internal Database SP2 is out, would it?

"ASP.NET AJAX compatibility and support" just says that you can now use AJAX to create Web parts and where to get the control kit from. The "support" part of the heading is the totally useless "you can get help from Microsoft customer support". Where; How ??

"New Stsadm operations and properties" just gives links (which it repeats for WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 - to make it past the end of page 2?) to the couple (three in the case of MOSS 2007) of new stsadm functions.

"Recommendations for 64-bit hardware" is even shorter than any of the above sections and yet it includes the important statement that WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 are the last SharePoint versions able to run on 32-bit hardware and operating systems.

It's a mystery to me why the announcement of this has been hidden away in what is virtually a footnote to a white paper that isn't, but there you are, as I started this piece, Microsoft sometimes works in strange ways.