Managing The Windows 2000 Registry

What’s in the Standard Policy Templates

The three primary policy templates used with Win95 and NT installations define what policy settings are available to you when building policies. Each template file contains settings that apply to HKLM and HKCU; however, in the following sections these entries are separated depending on the root key they affect.

WINNT.ADM

The WINNT.ADM policy template defines policy settings that are specific to Windows 2000 and NT. Some entries in this template have counterparts in the Windows 95 template file. Table 6-1 shows the WINNT.ADM entries that apply to computer policies, while Table 6-2 shows the settings that apply to user and group policies.

COMMON.ADM

COMMON.ADM contains policy settings that are common to Windows 2000, NT, 95, and 98. Table 6-3 shows the entries that apply to computer policies, while Table 6-4 shows the settings that apply to user and group policies.

WINDOWS.ADM

The WINDOWS.ADM policy template defines policy settings that are specific to Windows 95/98. When you use System Policy Editor to edit policies for Win9x machines, this template is used to determine which policies and parts you may apply. Because the items in this policy are all Win9x-specific, I’ve elected not to cover them here.

Table 6-1. HKLM Entries in WINNT.ADM

Category	Policy	Registry Key/Value	What It Does	Value
Windows NT Network\Sharing	Create hidden drive shares (workstation)	System\CurrentControlSet\ Services\LanManServer\ Parameters\ AutoShareWks ...