Troubleshooting Change and Configuration Management

Registry Settings Using Administrative Templates Are Not Applied

You configure Administrative Templates to apply registry-based Group Policy settings in a Group Policy object. The user who is managed by the Group Policy object logs on, and the administrative templates are not applied.

Possible Causes:

Group Policy is not applied.
Active Directory replication has not yet completed on the domain controller in use. Therefore the .pol file is not present and cannot be applied.

Diagnostic Tests:

To confirm that Administrative Template Group Policy settings are not applied to the user's computer, run Gpresult.exe in verbose mode on the client. Look for the following text in the output:

The user received "Registry" settings from these GPOs:

If this section does not appear, no Administrative Template Group Policy settings are applied.

If some Administrative Template Group Policy settings are applied, confirm that the specific ones of interest are applied to the client computer and user. Look at the listing of the Group Policy objects that are applied, and also the registry settings that these Group Policy objects contain. Look for the following text in the output:

The user received "Registry" settings from these Group Policy objects:

    Local Group Policy

        Revision Number:    40

        Unique Name:    Local Group Policy

        Domain Name:

        Source:        Local computer

    EU-AppDeploymentPolicy

        Revision Number:    528

        Unique Name:    {ESD6ECF2-A8C9-11D2-B575-0008C7457B4E}

        Domain Name:    ntdev.microsoft.com

        Source:        Domain

    EU-AppDeploymentTest

        Revision Number:    11

        Unique Name:    {DFSDAC2B-FA94-11D2-9332-00C04FA3787A}

        Domain Name:    ntdev.microsoft.com

        Source:        Domain

The following registry settings were applied:

    KeyName:    Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Comdlg32

    ValueName:    NoBackButton

    ValueType:    REG_DWORD

    Value:    0x00000001

    KeyName:    Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Comdlg32

    ValueName:    NoFileMru

    ValueType:    REG_DWORD

    Value:    0x00000001

If the Group Policy objects that you think should apply are not applied, then check the other possible causes that could lead to Group Policy objects not applying successfully. Confirm your Group Policy object configuration in Active Directory.

Use Netdiag.exe to check network configuration and that DNS is working and configured.

Check to see that the user can successfully connect to a domain controller. Without a Windows 2000 domain controller, Group Policy cannot be applied.

Run Gpotool.exe in verbose mode on the client and check to see if any domain controllers are available.

Confirm that domain controller replication (Active Directory and Sysvol) is successful between all domain controllers. You can check replication status using Gpotool.exe. If domain controller replication is working, check the Sysvol file share on the user's log on domain controller to confirm that the .pol file is present.

If you can connect to the domain controller:

Check to see that other computers in the same organizational unit are successfully receiving the Administrative Template Group Policy settings. Then verify user or computer group membership and check for filtering.
If no other computers are receiving these Group Policy settings, then there might be a configuration issue. Confirm your Group Policy object configuration and design.
Check to see if loopback processing is enabled.

For more diagnostic detail, you can enable Group Policy verbose logging.