Creating A Group Policy Administrative Template For Deploying The CRM Client AutoUpdate Registry Keys

In my Article CRM v4 Client AutoUpdate Procedure, I talked about deploying the required registry keys:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\MSCRMClient\AutoUpdateDownloadUrl (for 32bit)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\MSCRMClient\AutoUpdateDownloadUrl (for 64bit)

This can either be done by tediously going to each PC and manually creating them or executing a .reg Merge file.
But that would not be time constructive, im sure you have more pressing things to do.

SO, im going to show you haw to create a Group Policy Administrative Template so you can deploy the registry entries the next time the pc reboots or refreshes it domain policy., right here goes:

;------------------------------- Start Of FILE --------------------------------------------

CLASS MACHINE
CATEGORY CRM_Client_AutoUpdate
  POLICY Update_Share_32Bit
  EXPLAIN !!ClientHelp
  KEYNAME Software\Microsoft\MSCRMClient
    PART "Set the File Share to :" EDITTEXT REQUIRED
    DEFAULT !!DefaultServer
    VALUENAME "AutoUpdateDownloadUrl"
    END PART
  END POLICY

  POLICY Update_Share_64Bit
  EXPLAIN !!ClientHelp
  KEYNAME SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\MSCRMClient
    PART "Set the File Share to :" EDITTEXT REQUIRED
    DEFAULT !!DefaultServer
    VALUENAME "AutoUpdateDownloadUrl"
    END PART
  END POLICY
END CATEGORY

[strings]
dummy="dummy"
DefaultServer="http://mscrm/crmpatches/"

;explains
ClientHelp="Set The File Share That The CRM Client For Outlook Checks To See If There Is An Update., NOTE: MAKE SURE YOU FINISH URL WITH '/' E.g. 'http://[servername]/crmpatches/'  By Phil Adams(Cambridge Online)"

;------------------------- End of File -------------------------------------------------

Save the Above to a file called “CRM AutoUpdate.adm”

Then load up GPMC, then create and link the new policy to the OU required.
open the new policy and under User Configuration , right-click Administrative Templates and select Add/Remove Administrative Templates.

find the new ADM file and highlight it, then select Add. It will be copied into the policy in SYSVOL automagically. 
Now we highlight Administrative Templates and select View | Filtering.
Uncheck "Only show policy settings that can be fully managed" (i.e. any custom policy). It will look like this:
Now if you navigate to your policy, you get this (see the cool explanation too? No one can say they don’t know what this policy is about!