Customize the GPMC User Interface
Applies To: Windows Server 2008
You can customize the Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) user interface (UI) by performing the procedures in this topic.
To set user interface options
On the GPMC View menu, click Options.
Select one or all of the following tabs, one at a time, to customize specific aspects of the GPMC UI:
On the Columns tab:
Select a table from the Table location drop-down list.
In Columns displayed in this order, add a check next to each column that should be displayed.
Select a column and use the Move Up and Move Down buttons to set the order of columns.
Repeat steps 2 and 3 for each table in the Table location drop-down list you want to change, and then click OK.
On by default, Save customized column order and sizes makes column order and size selections persistent. Clear this check box if you do not want the selections to persist.
On the Reporting tab, select one of the following options:
To specify that GPMC should use the local .adm files, select Default. If an .adm file is not found locally, GPMC will look in the Group Policy objects (GPO) folder in the sysvol folder.
To specify a custom location that takes precedence over the default locations, select Custom, and then enter the location where the .adm files are stored.
Important
This procedure applies only to .adm files and not the new ADMX files, introduced in Windows Vista®. The ADMX file location is not configurable. GPMC automatically read ADMX files from either the local store or the domain-based central store.
On the **General** tab, select one of the following options:
- To display only forests or domains with two-way trusts to the user's domain, select **Enable trust checking**. This setting is selected by default.
- To show domain name controller names in parentheses after each domain in GPMC, select **Show domain controllers after domain names**.
- To display a confirmation dialog box to distinguish between GPOs and GPO links each time a GPO or GPO link is selected in GPMC, select **Show confirmation dialog box to distinguish between GPOs and GPO links**. This setting is selected by default.
Additional considerations
Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) uses files with .adm,.admx, and .adml extensions to display the friendly names of policy settings when generating HTML reports for GPOs, Group Policy Modeling, and Group Policy Results. These options let you control the location from which GPMC reads only .adm files.
If you add or modify an .adm or ADMX file in an existing location, you need to restart GPMC in order for GPMC to display the change in the .adm or .admx file when displaying HTML reports.
GPMC never copies the .adm or ADMX files to the sysvol folder.