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Managing Users’ Options with System Policies

Setting System Policies

After you have selected the policy templates you want to use, and specified which users or computers the policies affect, you are ready to set specific policies in the System Policy Editor. You can set a policy by opening the Properties dialog box for the desired user, group, or computer, and then selecting the policy you want to set.

Policies are organized by category within each policy template. The policy templates themselves are listed in order in the Properties dialog box. For example, if you add both the Excel9.adm and Word9.adm template files to the policy, both the Excel 2000 categories and the Word 2000 categories appear in the Properties dialog box.

Each policy has a check box to the left that indicates its current setting. When you select a policy, an edit control appears at the bottom of the dialog box so that you can provide additional information.

For example, if you select the Save Excel files as policy in the Transition category under Tools | Options in Excel, you use the list box at the bottom of the dialog box to indicate the file format you want to use.

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System policy settings

A system policy can have one of three settings in the Properties dialog box:

Selected

The policy has been implemented. Another check box below the policy indicates whether the setting is enforced as on or off. When a user logs on, the Windows registry changes to conform to the policy.

For example, in Excel you can set a policy to determine whether the Formula bar is visible in normal view. You turn on the policy by selecting the Show Formula bar in Normal view check box. Then you use the Check to enforce setting on; uncheck to enforce setting off check box to determine which way the setting is enforced.

Cleared

The policy has not been implemented. If it was implemented previously, the previously specified settings are removed from the Windows registry. When you clear a policy, the option returns either to the application default state or to whatever setting the user had specified before you set the policy.

For example, if an Excel user has set the Formula bar to appear in normal view, and you apply a policy to turn off the Formula bar, that user no longer sees the Formula bar in normal view. If you then clear the policy, it reverts to the previous settings, so the user sees the Formula bar in normal view once again.

Unavailable

System policies can also be changed to an unavailable state, where the check box is shaded to indicate that the setting is unchanged from the last time the user logged on. When you first create a system policy, all of the settings are set to the unavailable (shaded) state. After you have selected a particular system policy and distributed the policy file, do not use the unavailable state to clear the policy. If you want to stop enforcing a policy, clear the policy check box.

Note The unavailable state cannot clear a policy because when you enforce a policy, a value entry for that policy is added to the Policies subkey in the Windows registry. If you set the policy to the unavailable state, the value entry still exists in the Policies subkey and is still enforced. Even if a user changes the option in the user interface, the setting in the Policies subkey overrides the changes.