GPO shows only settings with empty value

Question

Its a month that all of my group policies are empty when I goes for edit and change some values it shows empty.

I am attaching its screen short.

Answer 1

Hello @John ,

Thank you so much for posting here.

All settings only under Administrative Templates show empty, right? If so, please kindly have a check if the ADMX templates are present in central store.

Windows uses a Central Store to store Administrative Templates files. To take advantage of the benefits of .admx files, you must create a Central Store in the sysvol folder on a Windows domain controller. The Central Store is a file location that is checked by the Group Policy tools by default. The Group Policy tools use all .admx files that are in the Central Store. The files that are in the Central Store are replicated to all domain controllers in the domain.

To create a Central Store for .admx and .adml files, create a new folder that is named PolicyDefinitions in the following location (for example) on the domain controller:

\contoso.com\SYSVOL\contoso.com\policies\PolicyDefinitions

Then copy all files from the PolicyDefinitions folder on a source computer to the new PolicyDefinitions folder on the domain controller.

For more information, we could refer to: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-sg/troubleshoot/windows-client/group-policy/create-and-manage-central-store

Please feel free to contact us if there is anything we could do for you.

Best regards,
Hannah Xiong

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Answer 2

Hello @Anonymous ,

I have applied as per your instruction, but its not effected yet.
I have taken the full C: drive backup 5 months ago and from that backup I copied the files of "PolicyDefinations" and paste it in my domain controller PolicyDefinitions folder, but its not effected yet.

Thanks.

Answer 3

Hello @Anonymous ,

We have 3 DCs which two is replicating between each other, but one is NOT replicating.
I have copied manually PolicyDefination Folder in 2nd DC yesterday it wasn't there and now i have checked there is no sysvol folder in 3rd DC
I have attached PolicyDefinations scrren short with this message.

Thanks.

Answer 4

Hello @John ,

Thank you so much for your feedback.

To check if AD replication is working properly by running repadmin /showrepl and repadmin /replsum on every DC. And run Repadmin /showrepl * /csv >showrepl.csv on one of the DC to check whether there is any error about the AD replication.

According to our description, there is something wrong with the replication between the three DCs. So we need to solve the replication issue. As mentioned, there is no SYSVOL folder on the 3rd DC.

First we can check if the SYSVOL folder replication type is DFSR or FRS by viewing the following registry on the existing DC.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\DFSR\Parameters\SysVols\Migrating Sysvols\LocalState registry subkey.

If this registry subkey exists and its value is set to 3 (ELIMINATED), DFSR is being used.

If the subkey does not exist, or if it has a different value, FRS is being used.

More information about SYSVOL and Netlogon, we could refer to:
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/8548.active-directory-sysvol-and-netlogon.aspx

For any question, please feel free to contact us.

Best regards,
Hannah Xiong

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