Microsoft patches Office 2003 lockout bug
Microsoft has fixed a problem in Office 2003 that prevented the software from opening documents saved using its access control technology.
The company warned late Friday that Office 2003 would not be able to open documents that had been protected with its Rights Management Services (RMS) beyond that day until Microsoft issued an update, even if users were authorized to open the document.
Users also could not save documents with RMS, which is used to prevent sensitive documents from being opened by unauthorized users, among other functions. The problem was caused by the expiration of an Information Rights Management (IRM) certificate. On Saturday, Microsoft released a hotfix, it wrote on its Office Sustained Engineering Team blog .
