Managing ADMX files in Server 2008 AD

There were many challenges in managing ADMs in a 2003 Active Directory environment. One of the inevitable side effects was SYSVOL bloat. You can read more about the GP template behavior in 2003 here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316977

In Server 2008 this issue has been handily addressed through the new Central Store feature. Custom ADMX files can now be centrally located easily with any properly permissioned author able to publish them. Best of all it's incredibly easy to get it going.

Copy c:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions from your Vista PC to \\domain.com\sysvol\policies . This is now where all AMDX files will live and to where you should publish any custom templates you create.

Once the copy is complete, create or edit a GPO and mouse over the Administrative Templates container under the computer configuration. This will show you where the templates are being retrieved from and if everything went correctly you should see the following message indicating that the central store is now the template source.


No comments:

Powered by Blogger.