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Group Policy Explain Text 

  • Article

To view Explain text, open the Properties dialog box of a Group Policy (GP) setting, and click the Explain tab. Explain text provides important information about the behavior of a GP setting, its interaction with other settings, and any other notes or issues administrators should be aware of.

  • Follow this basic template for Explain text (not all line items may be applicable):
    Specifies [state the behavior this setting specifies ].
    You can use this setting to [description].
    If the status is set to Enabled, [such and so occurs].
    If the status is set to Disabled, [such and so occurs].
    If the status is set to Not Configured, [such and so occurs].
    Note: [state any interactions with or dependencies on other settings here].

As a best practice, the Note section should provide information about:

  • Items that are not covered by this policy setting

  • Any other settings that are required for this setting to function

  • Any other settings that are related to the same component and information about whether these settings have a higher or lower priority than this setting

  • Any other related settings that the administrator should be aware of

    Example

    Specifies whether Terminal Services uses a Session Directory for tracking user sessions, allowing a group of terminal servers to locate and connect a user back to an existing session.

    If the status is set to Enabled, Terminal Services stores user session information in a Session Directory on the server specified in the Session Directory Server setting.

    If the status is set to Disabled, session tracking is not performed and cannot be enabled using either the Terminal Services Configuration tool or the Terminal Services WMI provider.

    If the status is set to Not Configured, session tracking is not specified at the Group Policy level. However, an administrator can configure servers to participate in a Session Directory with the Terminal Services Configuration tool or via the Terminal Services WMI provider.

    Note: If you enable this setting, you must enable the Session Directory Server and Session Directory Cluster Name settings. The Session Directory service can be used only when the Terminal Server component is installed on the server.

Limit Explain text to a maximum of 4,096 characters (this limit allows for localization expansion).