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Determining Whether to Use a Lockbox

Before developing an application using the Active Directory Rights Management Services (AD RMS) Software Development Kit (SDK), you must determine whether to use a lockbox. There are several possible scenarios:

  • A server lockbox (not available in Rights Management Services 1.0)
  • A client lockbox for Rights Management Services 1.0
  • A client lockbox for RMS versions later than 1.0
  • No lockbox (using Msdrm.dll with SOAP APIs)

To develop a server application that both publishes and consumes content, you must use the server lockbox. For more information, see Creating an Application That Uses a Server Lockbox.

To develop a server application that can publish content but does not require a server lockbox, you can use the AD RMS SOAP APIs. However, this solution does not enable you to consume protected content on the server without a lockbox. The SOAP APIs are supported by all AD RMS versions. For more information, see Building a Publishing Application Without Using a Lockbox.

To develop client applications, use the AD RMS client lockbox. Your application does not need to distinguish between the client lockboxes available on different AD RMS versions. For more information, see Building an AD RMS-Enabled Application.

For more information about the different types of lockboxes, see Lockboxes.

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Build date: 3/13/2008