adm cleanup

[mattbrooks]

Scenario: Consider a standard GPO that was created with a pre-Vista workstation. By design, when that GPO was created the associated standard adm template files were copied to the Sysvol share for that specific GPO (\\domaincontroller\SYSVOL\domainname\Policies\GUI D\ADM directory).

Question 1: If we remove those .adm files for that specific GPO, will the GPO continue to work properly?

Question 2: If we attempt to edit the GPO from GPMC on a Windows Vista client, will GPMC utilize the admx file store that has been copied to the Sysvol share for editing of that GPO?

Thank you!

[cpqalve]

Question 1: If we remove those .adm files for that specific GPO, will the GPO continue to work properly?

A: Yes the GPO will continue to work because the settings are actually stored in the pol file.

Question 2: If we attempt to edit the GPO from GPMC on a Windows Vista client, will GPMC utilize the admx file store that has been copied to the Sysvol share for editing of that GPO?

A: My assumption is that if that setting is represented in an ADMX template then yes, but if you used a custom ADM file then you should either convert that to an ADMX template or make sure to place that ADM file in the ADM folder.

[khunter]

I have the same situation. I've just created my central store and upgraded myself to Windows 7, so I now have the new GPMC. Is it worth the effort to go through sysvol and clear out my old ADM files, seeing as I don't need them, or should I just leave them there?

Will removal of the ADM files speed up the time it takes our workstations to pull down their policy updates at boot up and login?

Thanks!!

KH

[jeff_longley]

Any policy you've created previously will be using the ADM files. Only new ones will use the new format. The main reason for doing it as I see, is to reduce sysvol bloat, which can help replication times. How many policies have you got?

[khunter]

I have 10 gpo's that are applied to everyone, at least half are rather small and apply to various sub groups. Only one has a substantial number of policy settings in it. I have an "XP Workstation" policy that I was considering recreating now that I have a decent number of Windows 7 workstations.

There's also a number of sub OU's that get permissions to special printers through specific gpo's assigned to those sub-OU's.

KH

[jeff_longley]

I'd recreate and filter based on a WMI query; then eventually delete off the "legacy" policies.