Inetres.adm wont open in PolEdit

[pkspx]

Hello I hope you can shine some light on this problem I have been having. Basically I want to edit Inetres.adm template using the Microsoft poledit.exe I installed on my Windows XP pro machine from a Windows 2000 Advance Server CD. However, I am getting a “unsupportive administrative template� error alerting me that I cannot open with poledit and to use Group policy in Windows 2000. All I’m really trying to do is push out inetres.adm to a NTCONFIG.POL file so that users on my NT 4.0 Environment (non active directory with 2000 workstations) can get the updates I need to push out (need to disable the connection tab in Internet explore menu options.) If you can give me any ideas I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks.

[AdamV]

these are incompatible methods.
poledit creates a config.pol (specifically ntconfig.pol) file which contains entries which dictate registry keys / values to change
they are permanently changed or "tattooed"

The inetres.adm file you have is for group policy, which means the settings are written to the policies section of the registry and controlled properly (not permanently tattoed).

Maybe you could write directly to the policy key in another way (such as with a script). The key is at:
HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Control Panel!ConnectionsTab
but without some testing or reading through the ADM I don't know what values represent the different states.

I'll do some thinking and digging around to see if anything comes up

[pkspx]

Thanks for replying I have been searching the internet for hours. Just to give you more info, this is directly from the microsoft webpage.

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/Default.asp?url=/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/reskit/en-us/prda_dcm_vwui.asp

To create an Ntconfig.pol file

Using a text editor such as Notepad, remove all #if version and #endif statements from the following .adm files: System.adm, Inetres.adm, and Conf.adm, and then save the files. This prevents inadvertent loading of these files by Poledit.exe.
For example, in the Inetres.adm file, remove these lines:

#if version <= 2
#endif

Open Poledit.exe.
In the System Policy Editor window, on the Options menu, click Policy Template.
In the Policy Template Options dialog box, click Add, select one of the .adm files that you modified in step 1 above, and then click OK.
Specify the appropriate policy settings, as documented in System Policy Editor Help.
Save the file as Ntconfig.pol to the NETLOGON share of the Windows NT 4.0 domain controller

[AdamV]

OK, so at which stage do you get the error message you referred to?

You have opened the adm, done the find/remove and resaved. Did you note this on the page you linked:

The System Policy Editor from Windows NT 4.0 or earlier cannot read the Unicode-formatted .adm files shipped in Windows 2000 or later. You must use the version of System Policy Editor that ships in Windows 2000 or later, which supports Unicode. Alternatively, if you resave the .adm files as .txt files without Unicode encoding, you can use an older version of Poledit.exe.

So you save the file as interes.txt without unicoding and then try to add it as a template in poledit. Is this when you get the error?

This was a useful article, by the way, and not a technique I was aware of (having never had to go back to using poledit since leaving behind my NT4 / Win98 network). Always more to learn, but I tend to look to the new ways of doing things before going over new variations on the old ways...

[pkspx]

I'm using poledit.exe from a windows 2000 advance server CD so I'm positive I'm using the correct version. However I'm kinda sorta lost about the lines to delete. Not sure if I'm suppose to delete the #endif from all of the file or just at the top where it states the version. I also have tried saving as a non unicode text file but poledit will only allow me to open adm templetes, or maybe I still don't understand 100%. Problem is so little at this time since we are getting ready to roll out to Win2K3 with AD in the next few months but it would be great if I can at least push out this policy before hand.

[AdamV]

you have to remove all the if and endifs (and the hashes #) according to the article