When using group policy to manage RMS templates the Office ADM files are not environment variable friendly. For instance a popular path administrators use is %localappdata%\Microsoft\DRM\Templates. However the default Office policy files do not properly expland the %localappdata% variable and the GPO setting does not work as expected.
The ADM files may be edited to handle environment varibles. Just add EXPANDABLETEXT to the appropriate file to enable this functionality. The ADM file to be edited is typically officexx.adm. office12.adm
POLICY !!L_SpecifyPermissionPolicyPath
KEYNAME Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Common\DRM
PART !!L_Enterpathtopolicytemplatesforcontentpermission TEXT
END PART
PART !!L_Empty EDITTEXT
VALUENAME admintemplatepath
EXPANDABLETEXT
EXPLAIN !!L_OfficeapplicationsusingIRMwillscanthepathprovidedtoseeifanyp
END POLICY
office14.adm
KEYNAME
"software\policies\microsoft\office\14.0\common\drm"
PART !!L_text42 TEXT
PART !!L_empty407 EDITTEXT
VALUENAME
"AdminTemplatePath"
The group policy settings are: User Configuration\Microsoft Office 2007 system\Manage Restricted Permissions\Specify Permission Policy Path User Configuration\Microsoft Office 2010 system\Manage Restricted Permissions\Specify Permission Policy Path Further Information:
Thanks to Jason's blog for the insight.
Steve Light - MSFT edited Revision 1. Comment: Fixed some formatting, added bullets in the links at the end to clean it up.
Steve Light - MSFT edited Original. Comment: Updated the title