ADM's in 2008

Hi Guys,
I have a 2003 domain with XP clients and we have now been given the go ahead to role out windows 7 HOWEVER the DC's will remain on 2003 for a year. So heres my questions!

I have created the central store and understand that which is all good however with a temporary mixed environment of XP and Windows 7 im concerned that admin staff will be working on W7 machines and updating old ADM's. If they were to do this would the ADM become an ADMX? Am i to expect it will create a few issues?

With W7 admin staff and XP admin staff both working on templates will i likely get some corruption?

Im just concerned that for example if i jump on an ADM and update say the server redirection is pointing to then the path will change (if its updated by W7 the location will default to \documents rather then \docs which its currently set to.

Is there any other gotcha's i need to look out for? I have had problems finding decent articles relating to this!

Thanks in advance!

If you're stuck with 2003 Servers, then you need to install RSAT on a Win 7 workstation. 2003 Server can read/process ADMX, but you cannot create or edit ADMX files. You need 2008 Server or later for this.

I'd recommend you build new GPOs for Win 7 workstations. ADM files won't turn into ADMX. They're different formats although in principle they do the same thing. There are also considerably more GPOs to tweak for Win 7 compared to Win XP.

If you're referring to C:\Documents and Settings vs C:\Users, this is where creating new GPOs is a good idea or alternatively using Windows variables which are applicable to both OSes.

Good luck with your deployment :)

Hi Michael,
Thanks for the reply. Yes i have installed the RSAT tools and the central store and have begun creating new policies. My issues are mainly with for example me editing a policy created in 2003 using windows 7 and then Jo Blogs making another change to that same policy from 2003. Im worried the policies being updated from different versions could cause corruption or adverse effects.

Best advice is manage everything from RSAT GPO wise until you have a 2008 Server in place.