Administrative Template Files

OpenOffice-Enterprise includes administrative template (.adm) files that defines the settings that can be managed by Group Policy. These files have to be installed on the server or administrative workstation where you will be creating and editing Group Policy Objects.

First, download the administrative template distribution file. As of the date of these instructions, the most recent revision of this file is distributed as ooeadm-230.zip and can be downloaded from http://OpenOfficeTechnology.com/download.

This zip file contains the 91 administrative template (.adm) files. Copy these files to the directory “C:\Windows\inf” on the computer where you will be creating and editing Group Policy Objects.

Set Baseline Policy

After installing the administrative template file, the next step is to create a Group Policy Object that will enforce your baseline site-wide policies.

1. Launch the Group Policy Management Console on your administrative workstation. Note: The Group Policy Management Console can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/gpmc/
2. Expand the tree for your domain, then right-click on “Group Policy Objects” and select “New”. Enter a name such as “OpenOffice Base Policy”. Your new Group Policy Object will appear in the tree under “Group Policy Objects”. Right-click on its name and select “Edit...”. This will open the Group Policy Object Editor.
3. In the Group Policy Object Editor, under “User Configuration”, right-click on “Administrative Templates” and select “Add/Remove Templates...”. In the Add/Remove dialog, click “Add...” and open the file openoffice-enterprise-v2.adm. Then click "Add..." again and open the file oo2-Setup.adm. Verify that these two files are displayed under "Current Policy Templates", and click “Close”.
4. Back in the Group Policy Editor, under “User Configuration”, expand “OpenOffice-Enterprise v2”, then select “OpenOffice-Enterprise”.
5. In the view pane, double-click on “License”. If you have a license for OpenOffice-Enterprise, enable this setting, enter your license in the “Value” field and click OK. If you have not yet purchased or received a license, OpenOffice-Enterprise will still function but a reminder dialog will be displayed when OpenOffice is run.
6. The OpenOffice-Enteprise client software automatically applies a baseline enterprise configuration to OpenOffice. These settings can be overridden if desired.

   For example, in order to make it easy to see when OpenOffice-Enterprise is installed and working, the baseline configuration changes the title bar text of the OpenOffice application from “OpenOffice.org” to “OpenOffice-Enterprise”. To change the titlebar text to some other string:

   In org.openoffice.Setup\Product
   set ooName to the new title bar string

   Additional settings can be added at this time, or they can be added later either by editing this Group Policy Object or by creating a new one. For guidance on setting additional policies, please see the OpenOffice Configuration Knowledgebase.

7. When you have finished adding your domain-wide base settings, close the Group Policy Object Editor.

Link Baseline Policy to Domain

Back in the Group Policy Management console, click on the name of your Group Policy Object (e.g., “OpenOffice Base Policy” or whatever name you previously chose), and without releasing the mouse button, drag the pointer to the name of your domain. The pointer will change shape to a pointer with a “+”. Release the mouse button and click OK to link your Group Policy Object to this domain. Repeat this process for any additional domains.

The Group Policy Object will begin to propagate and will be applied on each selected computer in the domain(s) within approx. 90 minutes (depending on how Group Policy is configured). To apply the GPO immediately on a particular computer, go to that computer and run “gpupdate” from a command prompt. Once the Group Policy Object is applied, the configuration changes will appear in the OpenOffice application the next time it is restarted.