View messages with restricted permission sent by using IRM

Information Rights Management (IRM), available in Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, allows individuals to specify access permissions to e-mail messages. Your organization must install and deploy IRM before you can use it.

For more information about IRM in Office Outlook 2007, see Introduction to using IRM for e-mail messages.

Messages with restricted permission that you receive can be identified by the icon that appears next to the message in the message list of your Inbox.

View a message that uses restricted permissions

• In the message list, double-click the message to open it.

Note: You cannot view the contents of a rights-managed message in the Reading Pane.

As the recipient, you cannot print, forward, or copy the rights-managed message. However, you can reply to the sender. Your reply has the same restrictions to the recipient (original sender) as the original message.

The first time that you try to open an e-mail message that uses restricted permission, you must connect to a licensing server to verify your credentials and download a use license. The use license defines the level of access that you have to a file. After the certificate is installed, you can view the contents of the message by opening the message.

More about downloading credentials

If your organization uses an IRM server, your administrator can advise you on how to set permissions. However, Most home and personal e-mail accounts do not use an IRM server. In that case, your first attempt to set permissions on a message triggers a dialog box in which Outlook prompts you to sign up for a free trial on an IRM server. Get a temporary credential by selecting Yes and signing up for a Rights Management (RM) account certificate for your outgoing e-mail address - you will need a Windows Live ID for that address. If you don't have one, you can quickly get a free Windows Live ID.

Downloading permissions requires that Microsoft Office send your credentials that includes your e-mail address and information about your permission rights to the licensing server. The information that is contained in the e-mail message is not sent to the licensing server. For more information, read the Privacy Statement.