IRM (Microsoft Information Rights Management)

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debbiebfisher
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IRM (Microsoft Information Rights Management)

Post by debbiebfisher »

I had a hard drive crash and have recovered PowerPoint presentations. I am getting the message "This presentation has been IRM protected by policy." I doubt I have ever put protection on any file because I have no clue how to do that :lol: Since I have no idea what the presentations are - they have just been recovered as file000x I don't know whether I need them or not. How can I open these presentations?
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Bidouille
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Re: IRM

Post by Bidouille »

debbiebfisher wrote:and have recovered PowerPoint presentations
Did you means PPT or PPTX files?
debbiebfisher wrote:I am getting the message "This presentation has been IRM protected by policy."
Are you sure to get this error with OpenOffice?
Could you provide a screenshot when it appears?
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Re: IRM

Post by debbiebfisher »

That is very interesting. I hadn't gotten to any of the PPTX files yet so had to try that before answering. It is PPT files that generate this message
IRM protected.png
I have now tried some PPTX files and many of them are opening! But with some, I am getting this screen. I have also gotten this screen from other types of files.
pptx opening.png
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RoryOF
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Re: IRM

Post by RoryOF »

IRM is a message from Windows, which has decided that the files may be corrupt; I would look on a Windows forum for assistance in repairing the files and clearing that message.
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Re: IRM

Post by debbiebfisher »

RoryOF wrote:IRM is a message from Windows, which has decided that the files may be corrupt; I would look on a Windows forum for assistance in repairing the files and clearing that message.


My research says it is a digital rights type message generated by Microsoft. It is supposed to represent a file that you don't have permission to open. As mentioned, there should be absolutely no reason why I wouldn't have permission to open any of the files I have on my computer :) Before the HD crash I never had any issues opening Microsoft Office files with Open Office.
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Re: IRM

Post by RoryOF »

IRM is controlled by Windows, so you need to turn IRM off to access your files; why Windows has decided your files are worthy of IRM's intervention I cannot say. This thread
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Fo ... management
may help.
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debbiebfisher
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Re: IRM

Post by debbiebfisher »

RoryOF wrote:IRM is controlled by Windows, so you need to turn IRM off to access your files; why Windows has decided your files are worthy of IRM's intervention I cannot say. This thread
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Fo ... management
may help.
I had seen that posting - it is not really relevant to my question. As mentioned, I have researched what IRM is and I know it comes from Microsoft Office, not Windows. My question is how do I turn off Microsoft Office IRM protection when the document is opened in Open Office. I don't use Microsoft Office, I use Open Office, so I can't turn off IRM in Microsoft Office.
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Re: IRM (Microsoft Information Rights Management)

Post by Hagar Delest »

debbiebfisher wrote:Since I have no idea what the presentations are - they have just been recovered as file000x I don't know whether I need them or not. How can I open these presentations?
I understand you have presentations but you don't know what is inside.
Were you able to open all the presentations before the crash?
Perhaps there were some presentations that you were not allowed to see and you would have had the same message in PowerPoint.

First time I hear about IRM in te forum IIRC. I'm not sure if this Windows feature also applies to 3rd party applications. It seems that it applies to PDFs also however.

I think that the answer is that no, you can't open such files in OpenOffice. You should try on a machine that has MS Office and where you can prove your credentials (Windows user profile point of view).
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Re: IRM

Post by RoryOF »

debbiebfisher wrote: I had seen that posting - it is not really relevant to my question. As mentioned, I have researched what IRM is and I know it comes from Microsoft Office, not Windows. My question is how do I turn off Microsoft Office IRM protection when the document is opened in Open Office. I don't use Microsoft Office, I use Open Office, so I can't turn off IRM in Microsoft Office.
You must turn off IRM protection in Windows - perhaps telling it not to apply to ppt files; Microsoft applications, as far as I know, decide on ownership of files by applications from the file extensions, so when Windows and IRM see a ppt file they decide it is owned by MS Office, even if that actual application is not installed on your computer.
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Hagar Delest
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Re: IRM (Microsoft Information Rights Management)

Post by Hagar Delest »

I would say that IRM is set per file and it is controlled by certificates linked to the Windows user profile, coming from a corporate policy. Thus, I'm not sure a user can decide solely to activate or not the feature.
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Re: IRM (Microsoft Information Rights Management)

Post by Villeroy »

Is this the user-friendly operating system everybody knows so well since 3 decades?
Please, edit this topic's initial post and add "[Solved]" to the subject line if your problem has been solved.
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Re: IRM

Post by debbiebfisher »

RoryOF wrote:
debbiebfisher wrote: I had seen that posting - it is not really relevant to my question. As mentioned, I have researched what IRM is and I know it comes from Microsoft Office, not Windows. My question is how do I turn off Microsoft Office IRM protection when the document is opened in Open Office. I don't use Microsoft Office, I use Open Office, so I can't turn off IRM in Microsoft Office.
You must turn off IRM protection in Windows - perhaps telling it not to apply to ppt files; Microsoft applications, as far as I know, decide on ownership of files by applications from the file extensions, so when Windows and IRM see a ppt file they decide it is owned by MS Office, even if that actual application is not installed on your computer.

I think this would be a logical conclusion if ALL the ppt files behaved in the same way. Some open, many don't. I think Hagar Delest has a more reasonable explanation, although it is going to be more difficult to execute.
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Re: IRM (Microsoft Information Rights Management)

Post by debbiebfisher »

Hagar Delest wrote:I would say that IRM is set per file and it is controlled by certificates linked to the Windows user profile, coming from a corporate policy. Thus, I'm not sure a user can decide solely to activate or not the feature.

I'm afraid I mostly agree with you on this one. Unfortunately, not knowing what the files are makes it difficult to figure out if/how to make changes to the file. Something like a password protected file. Still, it doesn't explain why the files opened on my previous computer, but not this one. :crazy:
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Re: IRM (Microsoft Information Rights Management)

Post by debbiebfisher »

Hagar Delest wrote:
debbiebfisher wrote:Since I have no idea what the presentations are - they have just been recovered as file000x I don't know whether I need them or not. How can I open these presentations?
I understand you have presentations but you don't know what is inside.
Were you able to open all the presentations before the crash?
Perhaps there were some presentations that you were not allowed to see and you would have had the same message in PowerPoint.

First time I hear about IRM in te forum IIRC. I'm not sure if this Windows feature also applies to 3rd party applications. It seems that it applies to PDFs also however.

I think that the answer is that no, you can't open such files in OpenOffice. You should try on a machine that has MS Office and where you can prove your credentials (Windows user profile point of view).

I did not see this response (getting notifications of some responses but not others - hmmmm) before the others to which I replied.

I, to my knowledge, have never had a presentation that I was unable to open. The HD I have drilled was mine from brand new, no one else used it and everything on it belongs to me. So... not really any way a file that wasn't available to me could have snuck in there. So, I would have to say YES, I was able to open them all. I actually had thought about going to the old old old laptop that has MS Office on it and trying it out. I will try that and post my results.
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Re: IRM (Microsoft Information Rights Management)

Post by RoryOF »

It may be that the PPT files in question are internally damaged, perhaps because of something that happened at the crash or recovery - and if you are able to open them, this will be revealed. A possible easy method might be to bring these on a USB stick to some other computer and try them there.

It might be worth running chkdsk /f at the command prompt on your computer, as the file allocation tables may have become upset in the course of the crash and recovery.
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debbiebfisher
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Re: IRM (Microsoft Information Rights Management)

Post by debbiebfisher »

RoryOF wrote:It may be that the PPT files in question are internally damaged, perhaps because of something that happened at the crash or recovery - and if you are able to open them, this will be revealed. A possible easy method might be to bring these on a USB stick to some other computer and try them there.

It might be worth running chkdsk /f at the command prompt on your computer, as the file allocation tables may have become upset in the course of the crash and recovery.

Interestingly, I have followed Hagar's advice and tried them on a computer running MS Office. I get the same message although now I can see permissions. They are marked Unrestricted Access. Curiouser and curiouser.
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Re: IRM (Microsoft Information Rights Management)

Post by Hagar Delest »

Villeroy wrote:Is this the user-friendly operating system everybody knows so well since 3 decades?
For sure. As long as there are xRM, you can bet it is!
debbiebfisher wrote:Interestingly, I have followed Hagar's advice and tried them on a computer running MS Office. I get the same message although now I can see permissions. They are marked Unrestricted Access. Curiouser and curiouser.
You should ask either your IT or the author of the original files if you have the information. Else, ask a Windows forum, it's definitively a problem with the IRM settings.
But for sure in this case, no way for AOO/LO to open that if even MS Office can't.
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Re: IRM (Microsoft Information Rights Management)

Post by debbiebfisher »

Hagar Delest wrote:
Villeroy wrote:Is this the user-friendly operating system everybody knows so well since 3 decades?
For sure. As long as there are xRM, you can bet it is!
debbiebfisher wrote:Interestingly, I have followed Hagar's advice and tried them on a computer running MS Office. I get the same message although now I can see permissions. They are marked Unrestricted Access. Curiouser and curiouser.
You should ask either your IT or the author of the original files if you have the information. Else, ask a Windows forum, it's definitively a problem with the IRM settings.
But for sure in this case, no way for AOO/LO to open that if even MS Office can't.
Yeah, absolutely NO information on who the author is etc because no information can be accessed. The files got labelled file0001 etc. Nothing descriptive there. I just got a laptop with LibreOffice on it, so maybe I'll try that...
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Re: IRM (Microsoft Information Rights Management)

Post by RoryOF »

If the files are relabelled to file0001 etc, this is almost certainly an indication that they are "recovered" files, recovered after some form of damage in the crash. That frequently indicates that there is some - perhaps not yet discovered - damage to the logical structure of the file system on the hard disk . I strongly suggest a disk integrity check, such as running chkdsk /f.
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Re: IRM (Microsoft Information Rights Management)

Post by debbiebfisher »

RoryOF wrote:If the files are relabelled to file0001 etc, this is almost certainly an indication that they are "recovered" files, recovered after some form of damage in the crash. That frequently indicates that there is some - perhaps not yet discovered - damage to the logical structure of the file system on the hard disk . I strongly suggest a disk integrity check, such as running chkdsk /f.
Hmmm... if you go back to my original post you will see that I state that they are recovered files. Yes, there is damage to the disk - I knew this. This does not explain the sudden appearance of IRM files where there never were such before, nor the randomness of the IRM files nor my inability to open files in Open Office that have previously been opened in Open Office. IRM permission changes are not caused by damage to the logical structure of the file system.
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Re: IRM (Microsoft Information Rights Management)

Post by Hagar Delest »

Has this hard drive been yours since day 1?
Maybe it was someone else's and you recovered also files you didn't know about, that were just deleted before you got this HD.
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Re: IRM (Microsoft Information Rights Management)

Post by debbiebfisher »

Hagar Delest wrote:Has this hard drive been yours since day 1?
Maybe it was someone else's and you recovered also files you didn't know about, that were just deleted before you got this HD.
Yup, it has been since day 1, although... the computer was a POS from day one and was sent back three times for repairs. I wonder... this has only just occurred to me now. Hmmmm... Now I REALLY want to know what those files are!!! :lol: :lol:
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Re: IRM (Microsoft Information Rights Management)

Post by RoryOF »

debbiebfisher wrote: IRM permission changes are not caused by damage to the logical structure of the file system.
When the logical structure of the file system is damaged, spurious bytes can be written into File Allocation tables, so that a previously good file may have its name mangled, and/or chunks of other files attached to it. I cannot answer specifically for IRM, but I would expect that what is happening is that it is detecting that the file structures of these files do not now match a built-in integrity check ("checksums" or some similar method) and IRM locks then up as suspicious. If new random entries have been appended to the File listing, IRM will realise that some areas of the disk may be in use and generate file0001 etc names to point to these areas.
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