Rights Management Service Pack Planned

The first service pack for Windows Rights Management Services (RMS), currently in closed beta and expected to be available in the first half of 2005, addresses some potential barriers to deployment, particularly in highly secure environments.

Improvements Support Highly Secure Environments

Improvements in RMS SP1 include the following:

Offline enrollment. Today, an enterprise must activate its primary (“root”) RMS server by connecting over the Internet to Microsoft and receiving a signed certificate. In addition, each RMS client must be activated by connecting to a Microsoft-hosted service through the RMS server; this service generates a machine certificate and a “lockbox” (software-based secure storage for encryption keys). However, for security reasons, some customers might want to use RMS in a completely closed system that lacks Internet access.

SP1 addresses these problems. RMS server activation can occur via removable media—one PC can retrieve the RMS certificate over the Internet from Microsoft, then this certificate can be transferred to an RMS server in a closed system via disc. Client activation is no longer necessary at all with SP1—instead, each RMS SP1 client is delivered with the lockbox already included, with all the logic necessary to generate, store, and digitally sign the machine’s credentials.