The most common method of accessing, configuring, and modifying the security templates is to use the Security Templates snap-in. This snap-in is accessed through the Microsoft Management Console (MMC).

More Info

For information about how to use the MMC and import the Security Templates snap-in, see Chapter 5.

The Security Templates snap-in automatically sends you to the default storage location of the built-in security templates, the C:WindowsSecurityTemplates folder, which can be seen in Figure 15-9.

Figure 15-9. The Security Templates snap-in default location for built-in security templates

From here, you can modify existing templates, copy templates, or create new templates. We will cover how to do all of these custom tasks later in this chapter.

You might need to access the raw security template files while you customize the settings; for example when you are adding custom settings for services, files, and folders. These template files have an .inf extension, which makes them easy to pick out of a list of files. The files are simple text files, and you can use Notepad to edit them. You can use a different editor, but the additional formatting used in other applications might cause problems when the system accesses the templates.

Caution

Entries do not show up in the security template files until the setting has been established using the Security Templates snap-in. You can add text directly to these files, but you must use the exact syntax that would be used if you were using the snap-in.