Office 2003 Rights Management Bug Locks up Files
By David Worthington | Friday, December 11, 2009 at 1:42 pm
UPDATED: It’s a nightmare scenario: Imagine coming into the office and not being able to access any of your organization’s vital documents. That scenario became reality today for an untold number of Microsoft Office 2003 customers who use Microsoft’s Rights Management Service (RMS), a technology for controlling access to documents.
Office 2003 users receive the error, “Unexpected error occurred. Please try again later or contact your system administrator,” when they attempt to open or save protected documents. The bug affects Office 2003 products including Excel 2003, Outlook 2003, PowerPoint 2003, and Word 2003. It does not affect Office 2007 or Office 2010 Beta, according to Microsoft.
A spokesperson said that the bug was caused by a Information Rights Management (IRM) certificate expiring.
Microsoft has posted a bulletin to TechNet alerting customers to the problem, and says that it is working “as quickly as possible” to provide its customers with a solution. Further announcements will be posted to the blog.
Microsoft released a hotfix on Saturday. The Microsoft Office 2003 Service Pack 3 update is required for hotfixes to be installed.
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Office 2003 Rights Management Bug Locks up Files « technichristian.net Says:
December 13th, 2009 at 11:53 pm[…] Read on… […]
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Office 2003 Bug Locks Owners Out | JetLib News Says:
December 14th, 2009 at 12:10 am[…] Don’t Believe in Imaginary Property writes “A Microsoft Office 2003 bug is locking people out of their own files, specifically those protected with Microsoft’s Rights Management Service. Microsoft has a […]
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Office 2003 bug locks you out of your documents @ AskWoody.com Says:
December 14th, 2009 at 3:26 am[…] happened? David Worthington at Technologizer says that Microsoft let an Information Rights Management certificate […]
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Microsoft RMS Denies Access to People’s Own Documents | Boycott Novell Says:
December 14th, 2009 at 3:27 am[…] Microsoft’s Rights Management Service (RMS) is suffering from poor quality control, which has already caused serious bugs like incorrect maths. In this case, rather than calculations being corrupted, it is people’s own files that they are being denied access to: […]
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Microsoft Rights Management Locks Users Out of Their Own Files | Digitivity Says:
December 14th, 2009 at 8:02 am[…] problem with Microsoft’s RMS (Rights Management Services) prevented Office users from viewing their own files. The problem only affected Microsoft Office 2003, not Office […]
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BlogoFlux – Information Technology Blog » Blog Archive » Office 2003 bug locks users out of files Says:
December 14th, 2009 at 1:01 pm[…] posted on Technologizer, a bug has been reported by many companies using Microsoft Office 2003, causing protected files to […]
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Un error con Office 2003 Rights Management bloqueaba el acceso a ficheros de Office : Soft Zone : Blog sobre Software con tutoriales de ayuda y noticias Says:
December 15th, 2009 at 8:47 am[…] Vía | Technologizer […]
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Un error con Office 2003 Rights Management bloqueaba el acceso a ficheros de Office | Alojate.com Tu Proveedor de Web Hosting, Dominios, VPS, Servidores Dedicados, Factura Electrónica y Marketing para Buscadores en México Says:
December 16th, 2009 at 6:10 am[…] Vía | Technologizer […]
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H Microsoft διορθώνει bug κλειδώματος αρχείων του Office 2003 « Welcome to PC Doctor’s official page Says:
December 18th, 2009 at 3:24 am[…] προβλημα αναφέρθηκε πρώτο το Technologizer blog Δημοσιεύθηκε από Dennis Καταχωρήθηκε στο Uncategorized Leave a […]
December 11th, 2009 at 11:38 am
OpenOffice.org.
The other day I had a an issue with Office 2007. I can't remember the exact warning I received, but it had something to do with compatibility, and unless I clicked "No" Word wouldn't open.
It's just a shame to me and my customers that I'm forced, by my company, to use Microsoft's poorly performing products when there are viable and free alternatives like OpenOffice.org, which my company restricts me from using, and GoogleDocs, which my company blocks that feature on the Internet.
December 11th, 2009 at 11:00 pm
@IcyFog do you recall what the specific error was? An Office 2007 Service Pack added ODF support.
December 12th, 2009 at 4:19 am
@David
No I don’t recall, but after I posted that, oddly enough it happened to Outlook, so I got a screenshot. This is the message:
“Outlook experienced a serious problem with the ‘outlook scan’ add-in. If you have seen this message mulitple times you should disable this add-in and check to see if an update is available. Do you want to disable this add-in?”
Now that I read that message, I’m thinking I had to click “Yes” instead of “No.”
December 14th, 2009 at 12:49 am
@icyfog:
have the same problem, solved it using wordpad and rtf format. nobody notices the difference…
December 14th, 2009 at 7:04 am
Incorrect Maths, what the heck does that mean? Do you mean incorrect math or incorrect maps perhaps?
December 14th, 2009 at 9:23 am
Oh the irony…
Microsoft’s Rights Management Service (RMS)
Richard Stallman (RMS) must love that one.
@ ms releases odf – you should google “microsoft odf incompatible,” you will see that ms odf is broken. For example ms excel strips out all formulas in an odf spread sheet, and just saves the values the cells had when the spread sheet was opened up. In fact, it appears that ms intentionally broke odf in every way they possibly could, and still fit a very loose reading of being compatible with the odf standard.
When I see stories like these, they give me hope– eventually, even stupid people will come around, and stop using the products put out by these abusive corporations.
December 15th, 2009 at 5:42 am
@ Francois
Typically I use Notepad to write. Only when I’m ready to format and spellcheck will I use Word. Then I forward my documents in that format because of my company’s requirement. Notepad is where I start, and frankly it’s all I really need.
December 27th, 2011 at 12:40 pm
Incorrect Maths, what the heck does that mean? Do you mean incorrect math or incorrect maps perhaps?
December 27th, 2011 at 3:17 pm
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