I suspect you are referring to Office 2003 or 2007? Earlier versions didn't
have this capability. IRM provides the ability to secure Office documents
and email.
In a nutshell, it works with Windows Rights Management Services (RMS). If
you protect an Office document or email using IRM then only those who have
permission to open the document and perform whatever tasks you've granted
them, such as copy/print, can access the document or email. The RMS side or
IRM is what validates the user according to their Domain name
(DOMAIN\UserName), or UserName (their log on name), or Email address. (While
you can use a .Net Passport or Windows Live ID for authentication and bypass
the need to use RMS, I've not found this method to be successful.)
I'm not sure if that's what you were looking for, do you have specific
questions?
Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email cannot be acknowledged.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP
Coauthor of Word 2007 Inside Out:
http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/9801.aspx#AboutTheBook
Word FAQ:
http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine:
http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site:
http://mvps.org/
