3.3 Interpretation of Registry Policy Messages as Policies by an Adminstration Tool

Policy Description Messages map policy behaviors to registry keys and values, and Registry Policy Messages describe registry keys and values. Therefore, the Policy Description Messages can map policies to any key/value pairs in the Registry Policy Messages that are also referenced within the Policy Description Messages. Because of this, the Policy Description Messages can be used by a tool to determine what Administrative Template Policy behaviors have been set in the Registry Policy Messages (that is, what Administrative Template Policies are set for this GPO).

This also means that a tool can use the Policy Description Messages to serialize a policy behavior described in the Policy Description Message. This is because the Policy Description Message describes what key and value to set to generate a different behavior. A tool could create a Registry Policy Message with that key and value, and then update a GPO through a Registry Policy Update sequence. The updating of a GPO through a Registry Policy Update sequence occurs within a tool. A Registry Policy Message is consumed both by a tool to create or update a GPO and by a client to apply policy on the client.

The following table shows the correspondence between Policy Description Messages and Registry Policy Messages, as specified in Registry Policy Message Syntax (section 2.2.1).