Location of local policies

[Guest]

Hi, does someone know something about the location of local policies? Some
people say that local policies are stored in the windows registry, but I am
not sure.

If someone can answer me and give me a formal reference about this, it would
be wonderful.

Thanks,

 

[Wesley Vogel]

The registry is one location.

Registry.pol files are located in...
%Systemroot%\System32\GroupPolicy\Machine
and
%Systemroot%\System32\GroupPolicy\User

Subfolders of the Group Policy template
The Group Policy template folder contains subfolders, including, but not
limited to, the following:

* adm: Contains all the .adm files for this Group Policy template.
* Scripts: Contains all the scripts and related files for this Group Policy
template.
* User: Includes a Registry.pol file that contains the registry settings
that are to be applied to users. When a user logs on to a computer, this
Registry.pol file is downloaded and applied to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER portion
of the registry. The User folder contains an Applications subfolder.
* User\Applications: Contains the .aas files (application advertisement
scripts) that are used by the operating system–based installation service.
These files are applied to users.
* Machine: Includes a Registry.pol file that contains the registry settings
that are to be applied to computers. When a computer initializes, this
Registry.pol file is downloaded and applied to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
portion of the registry. The Machine folder contains an Applications
subfolder.
* Machine\Applications: Contains the .aas files that are used by the
operating system–based installation service. These files are applied to
computers.

Storage of Group Policy objects
Paste the following line into Start | Run and click OK...

hh SPconcepts.chm::/Storage.htm

Administrative Templates
Paste the following line into Start | Run and click OK...

hh SPconcepts.chm::/ADM.htm

The Group Policy Reference
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windows2000serv/reskit/w2rkbook/gp.mspx

Group Policy Registry Table
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/Windows/2000/server/reskit/en-us/gp/gpref.asp

Windows 2003, Windows XP, and Windows 2000 Group Policies by policy name
Number of policies in database: 844
http://www.boyce.us/gp/gplistall.asp

Policies open in a new window and have registry references.

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In

 

[Mark Burnett]

It depends on which policies you are talking about. Normall the local policy
settings are stored in the local security database, which is normally at
C:\WINDOWS\security\Database\secedit.sdb. Many settings are loaded directly
from that file upon refreshing the group policy (including startup or
login).

There are, however, many settings that are also stored in the Registry. Most
programs will retrieve these settings from directly from the Registry,
therefore the local group policy sets these values from the sdb file. If
there is no value in the sdb file for a particular key it will stay as it
is. So you can set most registry values directly in the registry unless
there is a policy that overrides it.

On a domain controller there is also a local Domain Controller Security
Policy that is located at
C:\WINDOWS\SYSVOL\sysvol\...\...\{6AC1786C-016F-11D2-945F-00C04fB984F9}

I'm not sure why you want to know the storage location of these objects, but
if you are looking to edit them directly, the secedit.sdb file is a form of
a jet database that uses undocumented API functions and you can really only
access that data using secedit.exe and security templates.

The domain controller's local policy is a text file at
C:\WINDOWS\SYSVOL\sysvol\...\...\{6AC1786C-016F-11D2-945F-00C04fB984F9}\MACHINE\Microsoft\Windows
NT\SecEdit\GptTmpl.inf

You can actually edit this file and have the changes recognized if you
increment the version number in
C:\WINDOWS\SYSVOL\sysvol\...\...\{6AC1786C-016F-11D2-945F-00C04fB984F9}\GPT.ini

Perhaps if you shared what you are trying to accomplish I could give you
some more useful information.


Mark Burnett
http://xato.net