System Policy Support

System policies allow the user to control the actions that a user is permitted to perform.

A policy can be defined by any application or component. The policy appears in the administrator user interface; information that the user set about the policy migrates to the local computer's registry. The application or component that defines a policy must check the registry to enforce its own policy.

We provide support for both .ADM and .ADMX policy template files. These template files allow the users to enforce policy restrictions on various features. These files are packaged under the Docs-Admin-Aids.

Using ADM File Format:

1. Categories, policies, and parts are described in a policy template (*.ADM) file. The Microsoft Resource Kit includes three policy template files: WINNT.ADM, COMMON.ADM, and WINDOWS.ADM. Applications or components can also provide their own policy template files.
   Note:

   Personal Communications supplies a policy template for each language currently supported. For example, the policy template for the US English language is named ENUPOL.ADM and the policy template for the French language is named FRAPOL.ADM.
2. The user run the policy editor, which reads one or more policy templates and lists the available categories and policies. The user set up the desired policies, and the policy editor uses registry functions to save the work to a policy (*.POL) file. A group policy editor is provided with Windows®. Documentation about the use of Microsoft® policy editors is found at http://www.microsoft.com.
3. After the user logs on (and user profiles are reconciled if they are enabled), the policy downloader determines where to find the file on the network, opens the policy file, and merges the appropriate computer, user, and user group policies into the local registry.

Using ADMX File Format:

ADMX file is a Windows Group Policy settings XML-based file that serves as a replacement for the older ADM file type. ADMX files were introduced in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 and are referred to as “Administrative Template XML-Based files”.

Personal Communications provides a policy template files ( ***pol.ADMX and ***pol.ADML ) for each language. The templates are on the Docs-Admin-Aids in the admin directory. The admin users configure the desired policies to enforce policy restrictions on various features.

ADMX files must be copied under the “C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions”. To import PCOMM policy ***pol.ADMX template files, copy them to the “PolicyDefinitions” folder.

Each ADMX has a corresponding language ADML policy template file and must be copied under the respective language folder under “PolicyDefinitions”.

For example: For US English language, please copy the enupol.ADML files under

“en-US” is the subfolder under “PolicyDefinitions”.

Run the windows group policy editor which reads the imported ADMX/ADML file and a new entry of “IBM Personal Communications” is populated under the “Administrative Templates”.