Article ID: 168231 - Last Review: November 1, 2006 - Revision: 1.1

System Policies Are Not Applied in Windows NT

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This article was previously published under Q168231
IMPORTANT: This article contains information about modifying the registry. Before you modify the registry, make sure to back it up and make sure that you understand how to restore the registry if a problem occurs. For information about how to back up, restore, and edit the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
256986  (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/256986/EN-US/ ) Description of the Microsoft Windows Registry
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SYMPTOMS

System policies may not be applied on Microsoft Windows NT-based computers or Microsoft Windows 95 client computers.
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CAUSE

This behavior can occur if you set the value of the UpdateMode DWORD value in the registry to "0." This setting disables the use of system policies.

In addition, if you set the same value to "0" on a Windows 2000 computer, then the NT 4.0 domain-based system policies are not applied.

This setting may be set to a default value of zero on some Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) versions of Windows NT.
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RESOLUTION

WARNING: If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

Change the data value of the UpdateMode value to 1. This value is located in the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Update
The following table lists valid settings for the UpdateMode DWORD value. 
   Setting   Description
   ----------------------------------------------------------------------
   0         System policies are disabled.
   1         Automatic mode. Search for a system policy file named
             Ntconfig.pol in the authenticating server's Netlogon share.
             This is the default value.
   2         Manual mode: Search for the specified system policy file in
             the location specified by the optional NetworkPath SZ value.
An UpdateMode data value of 2 requires an additional SZ value called NetworkPath that specifies a local or network system policy path and file name.

The following samples demonstrate valid entries for the NetworkPath value: 
   \\<Servername>\<Sharename>\<Filename>

   C:\<Directoryname>\<Filename>
The file name does not require a .pol extension, although you may want to do so for file identification.
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APPLIES TO
  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
  • Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 Developer Edition
  • Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Standard Edition
  • Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Enterprise Edition
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Keywords: 
kbenv kbprb KB168231
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