Policies

HKLM\SOFTWARE\

Description

The Policies subkey contains entries that store Group Policy settings.

Group Policy adds, deletes, and changes the values of entries in this subkey when you use the Group Policy snap-in to configure a policy; that is, to enable or disable the policy. When the policies affecting you or your computer change, such as when you move to a new user group, Group Policy deletes the entries applied to the old group and adds the entries applied to the new group.

Group Policy manages registry entries in four Policies subkeys:

• HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies
• HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies
• HKCU\SOFTWARE\Policies
• HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies

The Policies subkeys in HKCU store policy-related entries that are configured separately for each user. Group Policy adds these entries when you enable (and, for some policies, when you disable) a policy in the User Configuration folder in Group Policy.

The Policies subkeys in HKLM store policy-related entries that apply to all users of the computer. The system adds these entries when you enable (and, for some policies, when you disable) a policy in the Computer Configuration folder in Group Policy.

Many policy-related entries can appear in both HKCU and HKLM. Typically, the entries in HKLM take precedence over the entries in HKCU when both are configured.

The SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies subkey stores policy-related entries for Windows 2000 and for Windows NT 4.0 and earlier. The SOFTWARE\Policies subkey is new in Windows 2000. Please note that the different versions of Windows support different policies.

Change method

To add, remove, or change the entries in this subkey, use Group Policy.

Note

Many of the entries in the Policies subkeys have counterparts in other registry subkeys. These counterparts, known as preferences have the same effect on user or computer features as entries in the Policies subkey. However, when an entry appears in the Policies subkey, the preference is almost always ignored. For details, see the entry descriptions.

Tip

For detailed information about particular Group Policy settings, see the Group Policy Reference (Gp.chm) on the Windows 2000 Resource Kit companion CD.

For general information about Group Policy, see Group Policy in Windows 2000 Help.

To see a table associating policies with their corresponding registry entries, see the Group Policy Reference Table.

Caution

Do not use a registry editor to change the values of entries in this subkey. If you do, they will be overwritten the next time your policies are refreshed.