7.5 What's in the Standard Policy Templates?

Windows 2000 includes a number of administrative policy templates. Some are more general in nature and cover a wider scope; others pertain to specific applications. The first two templates are specific to Windows 2000 clients and are installed in Group Policy by default:

INETRES.ADM

Contains Internet Explorer policies for Windows 2000 clients; contains both machine and user settings. The HKCU settings, for the most part, regulate settings in the control panel of Internet Explorer. It has categories for the General tab, Content tab, Connection tab, Programs tab, Advanced tab, as well as some information delivery restrictions. The machine settings include categories for security and code downloading restrictions.

SYSTEM.ADM

By far the largest standard policy template. The machine portion of the template includes policy categories for administrative services, which encompasses login policies, file system settings, policy policies, and the task scheduler; networks; and printers. Registry settings under HKCU cover a broad range, from the control panel to Windows components to policies for system control.

The next administrative templates are specific to NT 4.0, 95/98, or both, and should be used with the System Policy editor rather than the Group Policies snap-in:

WINDOWS.ADM

Defines policy settings specific to Windows 95 and 98. The two categories included in the HKLM section of this template detail network and system policies, both of which encompass intermediate policy categories. Policy settings for the control panel, network sharing, system restrictions, and custom folders round out the user portion of this template.

WINNT.ADM

Defines user-interface options specific to NT 4.0. While some of the categories from the WINDOWS.ADM template appear here, the underlying subcategories and policies are different. As expected, this template contains both machine and user settings. The general machine categories cover policies for the system, networking, remote access, printers, user profiles and shell settings. The policy categories for the system, user profiles, and the shell are present under HKCU as well.

COMMON.ADM

Defines user interface options that are common to Windows NT 4.0, 98, and 95. In addition to system settings, it includes network settings for the machine and desktop settings for users.

Finally, here are a few templates included in the %SystemRoot%\inf directory:

CONF.ADM

Contains both user and machine policy settings for Microsoft NetMeeting.

INETSET.ADM

While INETRES.ADM contains policy settings for Internet restrictions, INETSET.ADM defines general Internet settings. The HKCU section of the template covers policy settings for colors, fonts, modem, and advanced settings.

WMP.ADM

Contains customization settings for the Windows Media Player.

For detailed information about these templates and the policies, Registry keys, and values that they cover, refer to Appendix A, and Appendix B.