The role of System Policy Editor

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Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2

The role of System Policy Editor

Although System Policy Editor (Poledit.exe) is mostly replaced by Group Policy, it is still useful under some circumstances. If you are upgrading from earlier versions of Windows, see Migration Issues.

  • Management of computers that run Windows 95 or Windows 98--System Policy Editor must be run locally on computers that run Windows 98 or Windows 95 to create Config.pol files that are compatible with the local operating system.

  • Management of computers that run Windows NT 4.0 Workstation and Windows NT 4.0 Server--These computers also need their own .pol file: NTconfig.pol.

  • Management of stand-alone computers--A Windows 2000 computer that is not joined to any domain is not subject to nonlocal Group Policy through Active Directory. The only Group Policy that applies to such a computer is local Group Policy, which contains settings for all users of that computer. For more information on local Group Policy, see Local Group Policy. To provide settings for multiple users, use System Policy Editor to write a Registry.pol file. Only the Windows 2000 version of System Policy Editor is compatible with Windows 2000.

Although earlier versions of System Policy Editor worked only with ASCII-encoded .adm files, the Windows 2000 version also supports Unicode-encoded .adm files.

For client computers running Windows 2000, Windows XP Professional, Windows XP 64-bit Edition (Itanium), and Windows Server 2003 operating systems, use Group Policy instead. For tips about using Group Policy, see Group Policy Best Practices (pre-GPMC).