• Article

Tip: Use New Group Policy Settings to Manage Office 2010

Follow Our Daily Tips

• facebook.com/TechNetTips
• twitter.com/TechNetTips
• blogs.technet.com/tnmag

With the release of Office 2010, Microsoft provided new Administrative Template files designed specifically to help you manage and secure Office 2010 in your organization. Numerous new settings are available, allowing you, for instance, to:

  • Configure security settings, such as specifying trusted locations and managing add-ons.
  • Controlling entry points to the Internet from Office 2010 applications.
  • Customize Office and hide options that you do not want available to your users.
  • Create and enforce a configuration on systems throughout your environment.

But to make use of these new management settings, you’ll first need to get the Administrative Template files (ADM, ADMX/ADML). They can be downloaded—along with the Office Customization Tool—from the Microsoft Download Center (by clicking here: Office 2010 Administrative Template files and Office Customization Tool).

newgp1.jpg

Store and Use the new Templates
The ADMX or ADML files, you can store the new files either locally or on a central store.

Locally, these files should be located in the following locations:

  • .admx files are stored in:
    %systemroot%\PolicyDefinitions
  • .adml files are stored in this location:
    %systemroot%\PolicyDefinitions\language
    Here, language would be replaced with the language identifier, such as %systemroot%\PolicyDefinitions\en-us.
  • .adm files are stored in:
    %systemroot%\inf

When storing these files in a central location, you’ll place the files in the following locations:

  • .admx files are stored in a root-level folder. For example, on your domain controller in:
    %systemroot% \sysvol\domain\policies\PolicyDefinitions
  • .adml files are stored in subfolders, like so:
    %systemroot%\sysvol\domain\policies\PolicyDefinitions\language
    Here, language would be replaced with the language identifier, such as %systemroot%\PolicyDefinitions\en-us. You should create a subdirectory for each language that you will use.

Note that Group Policy Object Editor automatically reads all .admx files stored in the central store of the domain in which the GPO was created. When there is no central store, Group Policy Object Editor reads the local versions of the .admx files used by the local GPO.

Tip by Matthew Graven, TechNet Tips Editor.

Looking for More Tips?

For more tips on Microsoft products and technologies, visit the TechNet Tips library.