Download Windows 11 Administrative Templates [All Versions]
In this post, I will show you how to download Windows 11 administrative templates for all versions of Windows 11. In order to support the new settings in Windows 11, Microsoft released a version of Windows 11 with a number of new, updated administrative template settings.
We will also look at the steps to install the new administrative templates for Windows 11 and copy the .admx and .adml files from Windows 11 ADMX to the Central Policy Store.
Every version of the Windows 10 or Windows 11 operating system comes with its own specific administrative templates. There are built-in templates that admins can utilize, and new settings are introduced with administrative templates.
Microsoft adds new settings for Windows 11 into these administrative templates, and you can deploy these settings using group policy. For example, there is a new Group Policy setting to disable the Chat Icon from Windows 11 taskbar and this setting was added with the Windows 11 21H2 administrative templates.
The ADMX templates are also available for the Windows Server 2022 operating system. You can also download ADMX templates for Microsoft Edge browser.
To download the administrative templates for all the versions of Windows 10, take a look at the article download Windows 10 administrative templates. After you deploy or install Windows 11, the new Group Policy settings details of the device and user configurations available in Administrative Templates.
Overview of Administrative Templates
The administrative templates, also known as ADMX templates, are divided into .admx files and language-specific.adml files for use by group policy administrators. When you download and extract the administrative templates to a folder, you will see a list of .admx and .adml files. With every new version of Windows 11, the administrative templates contain the new Group Policy settings details of the device and user configurations.
Download Windows 11 Administrative Templates
As mentioned earlier, the administrative templates are released for specific Windows 11 versions. As an example, I will show you how to download and install Administrative Templates (.admx) for Windows 11 October 2021 Update [21H2].
You can download Windows 11 Administrative Templates using following steps:
- Launch the browser and visit the Microsoft Download Center to download Administrative Templates (.admx) for Windows 11 October 2021 Update [21H2].
- Click on the Download button.
- In the File Download dialog box, click Save.
- In the Save As dialog box, browse to the directory on your computer to which you want to save the administrative template .msi file.
Administrative Templates (.admx) for Windows 11 2022 Update (22H2) – v3.0
Microsoft has released new administrative templates for Windows 11 22H2, and it’s called version 3.0 and contains new admx files. The procedure to install the administrative templates remains same. However, you’ll find some new settings upon installation. Use the below link to download the ADMX for Windows 11 22H2.
Download Administrative Templates (.admx) for Windows 11 2022 Update (22H2) – v3.0
Download Administrative Templates for Windows 11 22H2
With the release of Windows 11 version 22H2, Microsoft has released a complete set of Administrative Templates (.admx) for Windows 11 2022 Update (22H2). Use the below link to download the Windows 11 administrative templates for version 22H2.
Download Administrative Templates (.admx) for Windows 11 2022 Update (22H2)
How to Install Administrative Templates for Windows 11
You can use the following steps to install Windows 11 Administrative Template after downloading the file. The user must have the necessary permissions to run the Group Policy Management Editor (gpme.msc) or the Group Policy Object Editor (gpedit.msc) in order to install the admx templates.
Perform the following steps to install administrative templates for Windows 11. Double-click the downloaded Administrative Templates (.admx) for Windows 11 October 2021 Update to begin the installation. On the Welcome screen, click Next.
Accept the End-User License Agreement (EULA) and click Next.
The default location where Windows 11 .admx files install is C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Group Policy\Windows 11 October 2021 Update (21H2)\PolicyDefinitions\. You can alter the install location or leave it to default. Click Next.
![Install Administrative Templates (.admx) for Windows 11 October 2021 Update [21H2]](webp/download-windows-11-administrative-templates-snap4.webp "Download Windows 11 Administrative Templates [All Versions] 4")
Click Install to begin the installation of Administrative templates for Windows 11.
Please wait while the setup installs Administrative Templates (.admx) for Windows 11 October 2021 Update. Upon the successful installation, click the Finish button to exit the setup wizard.
You can find all the new Windows 11 .admx files and .adml files for all languages in the destination folder – C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Group Policy\Windows 11 October 2021 Update (21H2)\PolicyDefinitions as shown below.
Administrative Templates Language Options
When you download Windows 11 administrative templates, each download includes the Administrative Templates (.admx) for the following languages:
- cs-CZ Czech – Czech Republic
- da-DK Danish – Denmark
- de-DE German – Germany
- el-GR Greek – Greece
- en-US English – United States
- es-ES Spanish – Spain
- fi-FL Finnish – Finland
- fr-FR French – France
- hu-HU Hungarian – Hungary
- it-IT Italian – Italy
- ja-JP Japanese – Japan
- ko-KR Korean – Korea
- nb-NO Norwegian (Bokmål) – Norway
- nl-NL Dutch – The Netherlands
- pl-PL Polish – Poland
- pt-BR Portuguese – Brazil
- pt-PT Portuguese – Portugal
- ru-RU Russian – Russia
- sv-SE Swedish – Sweden
- tr-TR Turkish – Turkey
- zh-CN Chinese – China
- zh-TW Chinese – Taiwan
Copying Administrative Templates to the Central Store
In the above step, you installed the Windows 11 administrative templates to a folder on your computer. Now, all you need to do is copy the Windows 11 ADMX files to the Central Store for the Active Directory.
If you don’t have a Central Store, you need to create one in the sysvol folder of your domain controller to take advantage of the ADMX templates. If a folder for Central Store already exists for a previously built Central Store, you can access it at the following location.
\\<domainname.com>\SYSVOL\domainname.com\policies\PolicyDefinitions
Before you copy the administrative templates to the central policy store, you should either create a backup of the .admx files already in this folder or use a new folder describing the current version.
For example, you can create a separate folder to store in the central store with the following name.
\\<domainname.com>\SYSVOL\domainname.com\policies\PolicyDefinitions21H2
I recommend creating a separate folder for every new Windows 11 version administrative template. This makes it simpler to work with these templates and prevents confusion among administrators when distinct folders are created for each Windows 11 version’s administrative templates.
Once you’ve created the Central Store folder in the domain controller, you need to copy all the files in the PolicyDefinitions folder of the source computer to the new PolicyDefinitions folder you just created in the domain controller.
Copy the .admx files to the Central Store Policy > Policy Definitions 21H2 folder. For .adml files, these are language-specific, so you can copy only specific language folder rather than all of them.
That’s all you need to set up your ADMX templates for Windows 11. You can now access the new group policy using either Group Policy Editor (gpme.msc or gpedit.msc) and create Windows 11 group policies.
No you can’t go with this approach for different GPOs. The Microsoft source document that all of this is scraped from specifically says only the GPOs in the PolicyDefinitions are active. You can create as many backup folders as you want but they won’t be used. GPO templates are backwards compatible so with rare exceptions just use the latest windows 11 templates. This site appears to be written by someone who read the docs but didn’t actually try it themselves.
Hi Prajwal,
Do I miss something with these separate folders? We didn’t use separate folders yet and I liked this idea.
But when we have copied W11 templates to policies separate folder in Central Store as you recommended (like \\\SYSVOL\domainname.com\policies\PolicyDefinitions21H2), W11 new settings are not available in GPO configuration. So what is goal of copying W11 or app templates to separate folders?
It seems we need anyway to copy them to \\domainname.com\SYSVOL\domainname.com\policies\PolicyDefinitions.
Did you able to figure out. I have same issue. We have policy for Windows 10 and now creating policy for Windows 11. I create below folders but I am not able to utilize PolicyDefinitions21H2 to create Windows 11 policy.
Hi Prajwal,
Please tell, if in addition to Windows 10 (for example) ADMX files you need to add Windows Server 2022 ADMX files, then what should be done? Combine them all in one folder or there should be 2 separate folders, like:
Central Store Policy > Policy Definitions 21H2;
Central Store Policy > Policy Definitions Windows Server 2022?
I am referring to:
Administrative Templates (.admx) for Windows 10 November 2021 Update V2.msi;
Administrative Templates (.admx) for Windows Server 2022 August 2021 Update.msi
Maintain them in a separate folder.
Hello Prajwal,
Thanks for this post.
However, I am wondering what the best practice is in order to update existing GPOs (e.g. : Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome).
Since there is already a dedicated folder with a GUID in the policies folder, is it just enough to overwrite the « .admx » file in the PolicyDefinitions folder ?
Thanks in advance.
You can maintain separate folders for each.
You mean:
Central Store Policy > Policy Definitions > Chrome;
Central Store Policy > Policy Definitions > Edge?
You can go with that approach.