Category: At least Windows Server 2012, Windows 8 or Windows RT

Prevent the “desktop personalization” group from syncing to and from this PC. This turns off and disables the “desktop personalization” group on the “sync your settings” page in PC settings. If you enable this policy setting the “desktop personalization” group will not be synced. Use the option “Allow users to turn desktop personalization syncing on” so that syncing it turned off by default but not disabled. If you do not set or disable this setting syncing of the “desktop personalization” group is on by default and configurable by the user.

Prevent the “browser” group from syncing to and from this PC. This turns off and disables the “browser” group on the “sync your settings” page in PC settings. The “browser” group contains settings and info like history and favorites. If you enable this policy setting the “browser” group including info like history and favorites will not be synced. Use the option “Allow users to turn browser syncing on” so that syncing is turned off by default but not disabled. If you do not set or disable this setting syncing of the “browser” group is on by default and configurable by the user.

Prevent syncing to and from this PC when on metered Internet connections. This turns off and disables “sync your settings on metered connections” switch on the “sync your settings” page in PC Settings. If you enable this policy setting syncing on metered connections will be turned off and no syncing will take place when this PC is on a metered connection. If you do not set or disable this setting syncing on metered connections is configurable by the user.

Prevent syncing to and from this PC. This turns off and disables the “sync your settings” switch on the “sync your settings” page in PC Settings. If you enable this policy setting “sync your settings” will be turned off and none of the “sync your setting” groups will be synced on this PC. Use the option “Allow users to turn syncing on” so that syncing it turned off by default but not disabled. If you do not set or disable this setting “sync your settings” is on by default and configurable by the user.

Prevent the “app settings” group from syncing to and from this PC. This turns off and disables the “app settings” group on the “sync your settings” page in PC settings. If you enable this policy setting the “app settings” group will not be synced. Use the option “Allow users to turn app settings syncing on” so that syncing it turned off by default but not disabled. If you do not set or disable this setting syncing of the “app settings” group is on by default and configurable by the user.

This policy setting specifies the network locations that will be used for the repair of operating system corruption and for enabling optional features that have had their payload files removed. If you enable this policy setting and specify the new location the files in that location will be used to repair operating system corruption and for enabling optional features that have had their payload files removed. You must enter the fully qualified path to the new location in the “”Alternate source file path”” text box. Multiple locations can be specified when each path is separated by a semicolon. The network location can be either a folder or a WIM file. If it is a WIM file the location should be specified by prefixing the path with “wim:” and include the index of the image to use in the WIM file. For example “wim: -> -> server -> share -> install. wim:3”. If you disable or do not configure this policy setting or if the required files cannot be found at the locations specified in this policy setting the files will be downloaded from Windows Update if that is allowed by the policy settings for the computer.

Microsoft XPS Document Writer (MXDW) generates OpenXPS (*. oxps) files by default in Windows 8. 1 Windows RT 8. 1 and Windows Server 2012 R2. If you enable this group policy setting the default MXDW output format is the legacy Microsoft XPS (*. xps). If you disable or do not configure this policy setting the default MXDW output format is OpenXPS (*. oxps).

This policy determines if v4 printer drivers are allowed to run printer extensions. V4 printer drivers may include an optional customized user interface known as a printer extension. These extensions may provide access to more device features but this may not be appropriate for all enterprises. If you enable this policy setting then all printer extensions will not be allowed to run. If you disable this policy setting or do not configure it then all printer extensions that have been installed will be allowed to run.

Determines whether the XPS Rasterization Service or the XPS-to-GDI conversion (XGC) is forced to use a software rasterizer instead of a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) to rasterize pages. This setting may improve the performance of the XPS Rasterization Service or the XPS-to-GDI conversion (XGC) on machines that have a relatively powerful CPU as compared to the machine’s GPU.

Determines if print driver components are isolated from applications instead of normally loading them into applications. Isolating print drivers greatly reduces the risk of a print driver failure causing an application crash. Not all applications support driver isolation. By default Microsoft Excel 2007 Excel 2010 Word 2007 Word 2010 and certain other applications are configured to support it. Other applications may also be capable of isolating print drivers depending on whether they are configured for it. If you enable or do not configure this policy setting then applications that are configured to support driver isolation will be isolated. If you disable this policy setting then print drivers will be loaded within all associated application processes. Notes:-This policy setting applies only to applications opted into isolation. -This policy setting applies only to print drivers loaded by applications. Print drivers loaded by the print spooler are not affected. -This policy setting is only checked once during the lifetime of a process. After changing the policy a running application must be relaunched before settings take effect.