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Reader Lasse Laursen contacted me with an interesting question. When he opens his Default Domain Policy in Group Policy Object Editor, some of the nodes under Administrative Templates are in different languages -- German, Italian, Arabic, and some stuff doesn't even display and ends up as a series of "open square" characters. He wants to know how to reverse this, so that the outcome will be english only.



I replied by asking him questions concerning his environment e.g. What versions of Windows (server, client) are you using in your Active Directory environment? What version of Windows was this screenshot taken from? When did this issue arise and what change(s) did you make to your network just prior to that? Have you installed any Multilingual User Interface (MUI) packs? I always like to gather lots of information before I try to answer a question or resolve a problem. (Tip: If you send me a question, please include as much background info about your situation as possible since this can often help narrow down the field of possible responses/resolutions to your problem.) It turned out that Lasse's answers to these questions were that he was using Windows 2003 R2 English version on his servers, Windows XP SP2 on his clients, had changed nothing in his environment and had only applied MUI for Office 2003 client.
It turned out Lasse is a smart dude so before he even received my reply he had figured out a resolution to his problem, and I thought I'd share with Lasse's permission a slightly edited version of his solution here in case any of you readers come across the same kind of issue. Lasse says it turned out the reason this had happened to him was because "If you install an Admin Pack on your client and connect to your server via your client, then there will be a mismatch in your ADM files -- the server can only hold one. But if the client also has one, the local client wins, and then the [language] errors [happen]."



Lasse then goes on to describe the solution: "In your Group Policy Object Editor, right click on Administrative Templates, [select] Add/Remove Templates, then remove all templates. [Then] install the default ADM files and you are up and working again. But that is not all. You'll have to "close the door" and then make sure this doesn't happen again. In your Group Policies, disable the one which says Automatically Update ADM Files." The policy Lasse is referring to is described here, and Lasse later followed up with an additional tip: "Those are the steps to recover your ADM files, but in some cases, you will have to remove all ADM files from all Member servers in your domain."



Got a technical question you'd like answered? Or a solution you'd like to share with others? Email me and I'll do my best to assist.

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