ZENworks^TM lets you easily customize and deploy extensible policies across your network to accommodate your specific business practices. For any software program, an extensible policy allows you to control any application function that is configured in the Windows* registry.

ZENworks leverages Microsoft* desktop enhancements by doing the following to provide extensible policies that are enabled in NDS^TM:

• Moving the policy editor functionality into NDS
• Moving Windows registry information for applications into NDS
• Enabling NDS to point to extensible policy files

See the following sections:

When you install a software application that is Windows 95/98 compatible, that application's installation program uses the Microsoft policy editor (POLEDIT.EXE) to read the application's .ADM file and create a .POL file that updates the workstation's Windows registry. However, when you install an application on a workstation under the umbrella of ZENworks, the ZENworks policy editor (WMPOLSNP.EXE) is used to read the .ADM file and make the necessary changes to the workstation's Windows registry.

The Microsoft policy editor lets you make changes to the policies an .ADM file creates, but only per workstation. The Novell^® ZENworks policy editor, when an application is installed under ZENworks, ensures that the application's DNS-enabled policies are applied across the network.When you create an extensible policy, it must be scheduled to run before it can take effect. Some hard-coded policies are explicitly run at login, such as the 95 User System Policy. Such policies cannot be scheduled.

.ADM Files

The .ADM files are static templates for creating policies in the ZENworks database. When you edit a policy in ZENworks, the changes are made in the database rather than the .ADM file. Even so, you should not delete an .ADM file from a directory once it has been used in ZENworks, because it will be needed to undo registry changes if you should remove the policy from ZENworks.

When you have .ADM files that you want to use, you should place them in a location where you will be able to easily browse for them. You can save them on a workstation or on a server, because once the .ADM file has been used to create a policy, it will not be needed again until you remove the policy. Novell suggests the following location: SYS:\PUBLIC\WIN32\ADM Files.

Dual Policy Usage

In previous versions of ZENworks, Novell product policies were hard-coded. With ZENworks 2 and later, all policies are extensible through NDS. For the ZENworks 2 version, both hard-coded and extensible Novell policies are available to help you in transitioning to extensible policies.

You should not try to use both the hard-coded and extensible policies of the same kind at the same time. For example, the 95 Computer System Policy (hard-coded) includes two .ADM files. You could enable these .ADM files as extensible policies, and also enable the 95 Computer System Policy, with different settings in all of them. However, you cannot be sure of the order they will be executed, and therefore, which policy settings will be in effect.

If you have the option to use either a hard-coded policy or its .ADM equivalents, use the extensible policies. You can more easily troubleshoot extensible policy errors.

About Microsoft Policy Editor Files

Consider the following when deciding whether to enable a Microsoft Win95-98 or WinNT User Policy file:

• Only one policy file will be used.

• Policy files do not interrupt the usage of the Win95-98 or WinNT User System Policy in NDS, except that when a policy (such as Default User/Desktop/Wallpaper) is set both in the WinNT or Win95-98 User System Policy page and the .POL file specified on the User Policy File page, the setting in the .POL file will be used. However, all policies not superseded by a .POL file will continue to be used.

• Policy files are searched for in the following order:

  1.   User Policy File associated to the user.

  2.   Client Configuration Policy associated to the Workstation.

  3.   Default Policy file ([95] SYS:\PUBLIC\CONFIG.POL or [NT] SYS:\PUBLIC\WINNT\NTCONFIG.POL).

  4.   NT Domain Policy (if on NT).

If no User Policy File is implemented and a policy setting exists on the WinNT or Win95-98 User System Policy page, that policy setting will be used.