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using Element

Applies To: Windows Server 2008

The using element provides the mapping of the logical name to a unique URI name of a previously defined policy namespace located in a different ADMX file. This is an optional element with no limit to the maximum number of using elements that can be declared in a policyNamespaces element.

Syntax

<using prefix="<placeholder for logical or friendly name>"
                   namespace="<placeholder for URI>" />

Attributes

Attributes Required Description

prefix Attribute

Yes

prefix="<placeholder for logical or friendly name>"

A logical name to use for referring to the namespace within the current ADMX file.

namespace Attribute

Yes

namespace="<placeholder for URI>"

A URI using dotted notation; for example, Microsoft.Policies.Example1.

Child elements

There are no child elements associated with this element.

Remarks

ADMX files treat all elements defined within a specific policyNamespace as a unique name. You use the using element to reference an existing category element from a different policyNamespace in order to avoid creating duplicate category names in the Local Group Policy Editor or Group Policy Management Console (GPMC). You use the using element to reference previously defined supportedOn text from another ADMX file or the parser will give you an error. If you are writing a number of ADMX files that may reference another file, you should take care to build a single file containing the category and supportedOn elements referenced from all files, also called a base file. This will help avoid circular referencing that may cause problems when the Local Group Policy Editor or GPMC reads the ADMX files. The base file for all Windows components is called windows.admx.

Examples

This XML fragment is an example of referencing the Windows base file, windows.admx, via the using element.

    <using prefix="windows" namespace="Microsoft.Policies.Windows" />

Additional references

policyNamespaces Element