Windows Rights Management Services Solution Overview

The central element of a rights management solution for Office content is the Rights Management Services (RMS) add-on service for Windows Server 2003. This service issues digital certificates to the other components of the RMS system, which in turn enable the components to encrypt and decrypt protected content, communicate securely with one another, and verify one another’s identities. RMS also issues use licenses, which enable applications that support RMS to access protected content and determine what rights users should have to the content.

Users need the Professional Editions of Word 2003, Excel 2003, PowerPoint 2003, and Outlook 2003 to protect Office content and assign rights using RMS. The “standard” editions of these four applications can access protected Office content and enforce rights on that content, but only the Professional Editions can add protection to content and subsequently modify the protection.

All use of protected content also requires an RMS client OS component, which encrypts and decrypts content for applications that support RMS (such as the Office 2003 applications), and handles all communication with RMS servers. This component includes a software “lockbox” that performs all encryption and decryption and secures secrets (such as encryption keys) from access by applications and other OS components. In future versions of Windows, this lockbox will be enhanced by specialized computer hardware, one focus of Microsoft’s Next Generation Secure Computing Base (NGSCB) project, formerly called “Palladium.”