AD RMS Infrastructure Requirements
Before you add the Active Directory Rights Management Services (AD RMS) server role on a computer running Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2, you must ensure that an appropriate infrastructure is in place, along with other essential elements that are described in this article.
Hardware Requirements
The minimum hardware requirements and recommendations for AD RMS servers are listed in the following table.
| Requirement | Recommendation |
| Computer with one Pentium 4 processor running at 3 GHz. An Intel Itanium 2 processor is required for Itanium-based systems. | Computer with two Pentium 4 processors running at 3 GHz or faster |
| 512 MB of RAM | 2 GB or more |
| 40 GB of free hard disk space | 80 GB or more |
Software Requirements
The software requirements for running AD RMS are listed in the following table.
| Software | Requirement |
| Operating system | Any edition of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2 except Web Edition |
| File system | NTFS file system is strongly recommended |
| Active Directory or Active Directory Domain Services | AD RMS must be installed in an Active Directory domain in which the domain controllers are running Windows Server 2000 with Service Pack 3 (SP3), Windows Server 2003, Windows Server® 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, or Windows Server 2012 R2. All users and groups in your organization that use AD RMS to acquire licenses and publish content must have an e-mail address configured in Active Directory. (This does not apply to federated users or users who obtain their RACs through the Windows Live ID service.) |
Database server |
AD RMS requires a database server, such as Microsoft SQL Server 2005, and stored procedures to perform operations. The AD RMS server role on Windows Server 2008 R2 does not support Microsoft SQL Server 2000. |
Required Accounts
A minimum of two domain accounts are required before you attempt to install AD RMS: A service account and an administrator account. The requirements for these accounts are listed in the following table.
| Account | Requirements |
| Service | The account that the AD RMS service runs under is a standard domain user account with no additional permissions. When AD RMS is installed, this account is added to the domain AD RMS Service group. |
| Administrator |
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Application Requirements
The following table summarizes the requirements for various applications that make use of RMS for information rights management (IRM) and other purposes. After the table are sections that provide additional details about each of these applications.
| Application | Version Requirements | RMS Server-side Version | RMS Client-side Version |
| Microsoft Office IRM |
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| Bulk Protection Tool |
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| Microsoft Office SharePoint Server IRM |
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| Windows Server 2008 R2 File Classification Infrastructure | Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise/Data Center |
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| Microsoft Exchange |
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| Windows Mobile |
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Microsoft Office IRM
The following table provides details about the Office suites required to create or consume protected content.
| Office Version | Create and Consume | Consume Only |
| Office 2003 | Professional | Standard |
| Office 2007 | Professional Plus, Ultimate, Enterprise | All other suites |
| Office 2010 | Professional Plus | All other suites |
| Office for Mac | Not available | Not available |
Bulk Protection Tool
The following table provides details about requirements and capabilities of the Bulk Protection Tool.
| Windows Versions | PST Integration Requirement | Document Types Protected |
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The Bulk Protection Tool is available for download from the Microsoft Download Center.
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server IRM
The following table shows the document types that can be protected by using AD RMS with SharePoint Server.
| SharePoint Version | Document Types Protected |
| SharePoint Server 2007 Standard/Enterprise |
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| SharePoint Server 2010 Standard/Enterprise |
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