.admx and .adml File Structure

Applies To: Windows Server 2008

In order to support the multilingual display of policy settings, the ADMX file structure must be broken into two types of files:

• A language-neutral file, .admx, describing the structure of the categories and Administrative template policy settings displayed in the Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) or Local Group Policy Editor.

• A set of language-dependent files, .adml, providing the localized portions displayed in the GPMC or Local Group Policy Editor. Each .adml file represents a single language you wish to support.

Language-neutral file (.admx) structure

The language-neutral file, .admx, determines the number and type of policy settings and their location by category in the GPMC or the Local Group Policy Editor display.

The .admx file is divided into seven main sections:

• The XML declaration that is required in order to validate as an XML-based file.

• The policyDefinitions Element, which contains all other elements for an .admx file.

• The policyNamespaces Element, which defines the unique namespace for this .admx file. The policyNamespaces element also provides a mapping to external file namespaces if this .admx file will reference category elements defined in a different .admx file. For more information about mapping to external file namespaces, see Referencing the Windows Base ADMX File or Creating a Custom Base ADMX File.

• The resources Element (.admx), which specifies the requirements for the language-specific resources; the minimum required version of the associated .adml file.

• The supportedOn Element, which specifies references to localized text strings defining the operating systems or applications affected by a specific policy setting. For more information about mapping to supportedOn text for Windows, see Referencing the Windows Base ADMX File.

• The categories Element, which specifies categories under which the policy setting in this .admx file will be displayed in the GPMC or Local Group Policy Editor. If you specify a category name that already exists in a different .admx file, you will create a duplicate node. For more information about referencing previously defined category names in order to avoid duplicate nodes, see Referencing the Windows Base ADMX File or Creating a Custom Base ADMX File.

• The policies Element, which contains the individual policy setting definitions.

Language resource file (.adml) structure

The language resource files, .adml, provide the language specific information needed by the language neutral file. The language neutral file will then reference specific sections of the language resource file in order for the GPMC or Local Group Policy Editor to display a policy setting in the correct language.

The .adml file contains the following main sections:

• The XML declaration, required to validate as an XML-based file.

• The policyDefinitionResources Element, which contains all other elements for an .adml file.

• The resources Element (.adml), which contains a stringTable Element and a presentationTable Element for a specified language. These two elements must be defined in the .adml file in the specific order of stringTable element followed by presentationTable element, as required by the ADMX schema. The parser for the Group Policy tools will give an error if the order of these two elements is reversed.