Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Administrative template settings
Administrative templates are used to edit registry-based policies for users and computers.
By default, all language-neutral administrative templates (.admx files) are stored in
%systemroot%\PolicyDefinitions, with language-specific templates (.adml files) stored in the
appropriate subdirectory (%systemroot%\PolicyDefinitions\en-us for U.S. English). When you
add a template to the store, it is available for use in the Group Policy Management Editor. If
you're on a local computer and you run gpedit.msc, you're editing the local Group Policy, and
it will read from that location.
By default, when you run GPMC and edit a GPO, it opens the Group Policy Management
Editor and automatically loads the administrative templates located on the local computer,
as shown in Figure 6-10. This process can create a problem if you have different versions of
Windows on the network and different sets of Administrative templates. Plus, if there's an
update to a template, it might not be migrated to every computer in the network.
FIGURE 6-10
The Group Policy Management Editor running on a Windows 8.1 domain-joined computer
with local policy definitions
You can create a central store of administrative templates that are replicated throughout
the domain. When you do, the Group Policy Management Editor loads those files instead of
the local store, as shown in Figure 6-11.
