Cracking the ADM Files

Chapter 4 discusses many ways to troubleshoot if Group Policy doesn't seem to be applying. However, if you've verified that you're getting the policy setting via GPRESULT or the Group Policy Results Wizard and you're certain you should be getting a specific policy you set, perhaps the problem is elsewhere.

Occasionally, there are bugs in the help text definitions of some policy settings in the ADM templates. Sometimes the policy setting states that Enable does one thing and Disable does anotherand, really, it doesn't work that way at all. Other times, the actual underlying definition of the policy setting is incorrect, and the Registry location it's set to modify doesn't really do anything. In all honesty, these problems are few and far between, but it is precisely what service pack updates to existing ADM files try to correct.

So, if you're 1000 percent convinced you're getting the GPO laid down on the client system, yet you're still not seeing the result of a specific policy setting, take it to the next step. That is, crack open the ADM template that has the policy setting you're trying to deliver, locate the policy definition, find the portion of the Registry that the policy will be setting, and manually enter that hack into your client system. After you do, verify it against what the policy setting says it's supposed to do.

Is it actually doing what it says it's supposed to do? For instance, if you suspected that the Manage Your Server Page policy setting wasn't doing what it says it was going to do, simply crack open System.adm , and locate the Do not display Manage Your Server Page policy setting (as shown in Figure 5.10).

As you can see, the policy setting modifies HKEY_Local_machine\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\MYS. It adds a value of DisableShowAtLogon and sets it to 1 to force the page to go away. You can plunk this into the Registry yourself and see this actually happen; you don't need to set a GPO to try it. After you verify the results, you're closer to knowing precisely what's going on.