Information Rights Management?

[Linn Kubler]

Hi,

We are currently running Office 2003 Standard and I have been asked to look
into Information Rights Management (IRM). Been doing some reading on line
and just have a couple questions. If there is a more appropriate forum for
these questions please let me know.

1.) I believe that IRM is only available in Office 2003 Pro, does that mean
if you have Office 2003 Standard you can't view IRM protected documents?
What about Office 2007?

2.) I found where it says you have to have a server running the Rights
Management Service to use IRM with 2003, is this true of 2007 also?

3.) Do you have to have a .NET Passport account to use IRM?

4.) Does the RMS server need to be single purpose or should it be setup on
the file server? We use a single server as our file server.

5.) What else haven't I asked about that I should know?

Thanks in advance,
Linn

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Hi,

We are currently running Office 2003 Standard and I have been asked to look
into Information Rights Management (IRM). Been doing some reading on line
and just have a couple questions. If there is a more appropriate forum for
these questions please let me know.

I don't use it, but have read a bit about IRM. From what I understand ...

1.) I believe that IRM is only available in Office 2003 Pro, does that mean
if you have Office 2003 Standard you can't view IRM protected documents?
What about Office 2007?

For 2003 and previous, you'd need to install an IRM client app that'd allow
you to open the docs, assuming you've got the correct permissions. I'm pretty
sure that when you attempt to open an IRM-protected doc, you'll be prompted to
download and install the client app if it's not already present. Not sure
whether this is required in 2007 or not.

2.) I found where it says you have to have a server running the Rights
Management Service to use IRM with 2003, is this true of 2007 also?

Yes and no. MS has a free (for now) server you can use. They don't promise
that it'll be free forever or that it'll even be available forever. They
promise a reasonable warning period before it goes down though. But it went
awol a bit less than two weeks ago and for a while people couldn't open their
IRM protected documents at all. Seems to be fixed now.

3.) Do you have to have a .NET Passport account to use IRM?

Not sure of the company-owned server situation, but you do need one with the
free server.

4.) Does the RMS server need to be single purpose or should it be setup on
the file server? We use a single server as our file server.

5.) What else haven't I asked about that I should know?

Can't help much with the last two, I'm afraid.