Managing The Windows 2000 Registry

Introducing the System Policy Editor

You create and edit system policies with the System Policy Editor (poledit.exe), which is normally installed only when you install a member of the Windows 2000 or NT server product families. It can be run from Windows 2000 Professional or NT Workstation, though, if you can legally obtain it from a server installation. Don’t confuse this version of System Policy Editor with the Windows 95/98 version: if you want to create policies that Win9x clients can use, you must use the Win9x editor, and the same is true for the NT version.^[34]

If you don’t have System Policy Editor installed, you can quickly install it (along with the User Manager for Domains, Server Manager, the Services for Macintosh Manager, and several others) by running the setup.bat file in the \clients\servtools\winnt directory of your NT Server CD. Once you’ve completed the installation, you’ll have access to the System Policy Editor.

Learning the System Policy Editor Interface

When you use RegEdt32 or RegEdit, you can definitely tell that you’re using software that predates Windows 2000. Although both take on some aspects of the Windows 2000 GUI, they’re indisputably different from other Windows 2000 software such as Internet Explorer or the system shell. POLEDIT, on the other hand, has an interface very similar to the shell, making it more immediately familiar.

The main window ...