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Microsoft Active Directory Rights Management Services

Know Your Rights

Article from ADMIN 89/2025

By Conor Fitzgerald

A built-in Microsoft AD RMS server role can help prevent data loss in your organization.

One of the most dreaded calls to be received by an IT administrator is that a former employee is suspected of stealing intellectual property or financial or personal data. Your task is now to discover the extent of the data loss. Although many large organizations benefit from the data loss prevention (DLP) technologies built into modern cloud offerings such as Microsoft 365 E5 licencing and Azure Rights Management, it is fair to say that not all organizations have the budget to implement such solutions, leaving them exposed to the real risks of data loss.

Implementing DLP strategies and solutions can be extremely expensive, but Microsoft has some built-in tools that could be deployed to help alleviate the risks of data loss, even if you have a limited budget. One such tool is Microsoft Active Directory Rights Management Services (AD RMS).

Microsoft AD RMS

Microsoft AD RMS is an on-premises information protection technology that helps organizations protect data from unauthorized access. AD RMS was first introduced in Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and is available as a built-in role in all major versions of Windows Server operating systems, up to and including Windows Server 2025. Although AD RMS is considered a legacy technology compared with modern solutions such as Azure Rights Management, it is fair to say that AD RMS can still play a major part in any DLP strategy, especially if the majority of your data is still hosted on in-house file servers and file shares.

As the name suggests, AD RMS requires an Active Directory domain environment, and the server running the AD RMS role needs to be domain joined. AD RMS should not be installed on a domain controller, and the recommended best practice would be to set up a dedicated server cluster for it, with a minimum of two AD RMS servers for resiliency and high availability. Installing the AD RMS role (

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