In this post I will show how you can create a Central Store for Group Policy Administrative Template files.
Why create a Central Store?
New group policy settings will become available every now and then. Usually when new version of operating system or application is released.
If you want to use new group policy settings, you have to add new ADMX/L files to the PolicyDefinitions Folder. This is a local folder (C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions) on the device where you might have Group Policy manager installed. ADML files allow the Group Policy Managers user interface to display information in different languages.
When using Group Policy manager on multiple devices, it can take a lot of time updating all of the folders. There is also a risk they will be out of sync with each other. In this post I will show you how to create a Central Store.
Group Policy tools will check the file location of the Central Store by default. The Group Policy tools use all .admx files that are in the Central Store. A Central Store replicates all new ADMX/L files to all domain controllers in the domain.
Create the Central Store
To create a Central Store for group policy .admx and .adml files you will need Read/Write permissions on the SYSVOL\iamsysadmin.eu\Policies folder. Create a new folder named PolicyDefinitions in the following location.
\\iamsysadmin.eu\SYSVOL\iamsysadmin.eu\Policies
Copy all files from the PolicyDefinitions folder on a source computer to the new PolicyDefinitions folder you created in the previous step. In this case I will be using the PolicyDefinitions folder from the domain controller.
Test the Central Store
That’s it, easy right? Now your Central Store is ready. So lets test it by adding Edge Chromium ADMX/L files to the Central Store and use Group Policy Management on our MECM server.
So I downloaded the Edge Chromium ADMX/L files from this website by selecting the version, build and platform and the selecting GET POLICY FILES.
This downloaded a zip file: MicrosoftEdgePolicyTemplates.zip after extracting the zip file go to:
MicrosoftEdgePolicyTemplates\windows\admx and select the ADMX files AND the folders of the languages you want to support when using the Group Policy Managers user interface .
Copy these files to the Central Store Folder PolicyDefinitions. Select do this for all current items and click Yes.
The ADMX/L files aren’t stored locally on the server from which I am running Group Policy Manager.
But Group Policy management will automatically use the ADMX/L files stored in the Central Store. Because I can set Edge Chromium policy settings when using the Group Policy Manager.
