Group Policy ADMX and ADML

Configuration of a central store

Overview

• Group Policy Overview• .admx and .adml files• Group policy integration– Local– Central Store

• Benefits• Limitations• Video

Group Policy

• Prior to Windows Vista/Server 2008 we used .adm files in group policy– Proprietary file format– Requires that administrators have a local copy of

all .adm files– Requires copying of the adm file to specific group

policy object sysvol\domain\policies\<GUID> directories

– About 2MB in size, causes lots of replications issues. (2MB * 1000 files = 2GB of network traffic)

.admx and .adml

• Newer group policy object files based on xml and supports language specific variants (.adml)

• Supported natively by Windows Vista and later operating systems

• Smaller foot print than previous .adm files

Group Policy Integration

• Local Store– %systemroot%\policyDefinitions

• Central Store– %systemroot%\sysvol\domain\policies\PolicyDefinitions

• Both work with Group Policy Editor on Windows Vista and later

Benefits

• Advantages of using ADMX Central Store:– Once an admx file is added to the central store, it

is available to all group policy administrators– Reduces the amount of replication across the

domain controllers– .admx and .adml files are about 1/10th the size

of .adm files– Central store is only copied once

Limitations• Only Windows Vista and later operating systems versions of group policy

administrative console support admx and adml files• Administrators cannot use a Windows XP or prior operating system to

administer group policy, including Windows Server 2003 R2 and earlier server versions

• Will break custom modifications directly made to the following files– System.adm– Inetres.adm– Wmplayer.adm– Wuau.adm

• .admx and .adml files for Windows 7 and 2008 R2 are not necessarily compatible with group policy editor for Vista and 2008.

• .admx and .adml files must be located either centrally or locally to apply correctly

Notes

• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc709647.aspx

• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/video/screencast-how-to-configure-the-central-admx-store.aspx