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Microsoft is making the third service pack for Office 2003 available for free download Sept. 18, which the company says strengthens the product's defenses against malicious software.

"While SP3 will be available as a free download on Sept. 18, customers will also begin to get notified of its availability via Microsoft's AutoUpdate over the next few weeks," a Microsoft spokesperson told eWEEK.

The service pack can be downloaded here.

"Microsoft Office 2003 Service Pack 3 is the culmination of several years of improvements to the product suite … It makes it easier to work with the Windows Vista operating system, exchange files with people who use the 2007 Microsoft Office system, and interact with servers in the 2007 release. SP3 also minimizes the issues that previously caused distractions," a white paper released along with the service pack says.

SP3 also enhances security by including recent, individually released patches. It includes new features and tools—such as MOICE (Microsoft Office Isolated Conversion Environment) and File Block—which were developed as part of the 2007 Microsoft Office system.

These two security tools, released separately earlier this year, reduce the threat of malware concealed within Microsoft Office documents, the paper says.

MOICE allows users to open Microsoft Office documents from unknown senders with relative safety. It uses the converters in the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 file formats to convert binary format files into the newer Office Open XML format, it says.

Download: Microsoft Releases Office 2003 Service Pack 3