Corel and Microsoft Service Pack 3

A statement from Corel concerning Microsoft Service Pack 3 issue for Office 2003 users:

Microsoft recently released Service Pack 3 for Microsoft Office 2003. When users installed this update, certain file formats, including those from competing vendors, including CorelDRAW .CDR files, were blocked by Microsoft. In a Knowledge Base article posted on Microsoft’s website, Microsoft suggested that the files being blocked had been deemed "less secure" by Microsoft. Corel has investigated thoroughly and confirmed that there is no substantiation for Microsoft’s assertion regarding CDR files.

Corel contacted Microsoft to express their concerns over the posting. Microsoft has since apologized to Corel and its users for the inaccurate information contained in the Knowledge Base and has corrected the Knowledge Base article . In addition, Microsoft has confirmed that any perceived security issues are related to MS Office import filters and not the file formats of other software vendors. Please see David Leblanc's blog for further details at: http://blogs.msdn.com/david_leblanc/archive/2008/01/04/office-sp3-and-file-formats.aspx

Corel is vigilant in maintaining the security of its file formats and is not aware of any security issues with the CDR file format.