Recently ran into an odd issue involving Group Policy. When working with a client in preparation for a platform upgrade, I uploaded the latest Windows 10 Group Policy ADMX files to their DC. However, afterward I noticed that when I clicked on Administrative Templates in the GPO editor, I would get this pop-up:

Resource ‘$(string.Win7Only)’ referenced in attribute displayName could not be found.
File $SERVER.$DOMAINSysVol$DOMAINPoliciesPolicyDefinitionssearchocr.admx, line 12, column 69

It would also show up when trying to view the GPO’s settings.

This article from Microsoft tells you to download the 1803 ADMX templates and copy over the SearchOCR.admx and SearchOCR.adml files.

That’s the correct. Do that. Don’t be like me.

But if you’re like me (you poor, poor soul), your eyes may have skipped down to the Workarounds section, where it tells you to update the SearchOCR.adml manually in Notepad and add a line of text to fix the issue.

Because who doesn’t love a good workaround?

When I did that, I received a new error when trying to view the settings of a Group Policy, this time about not being to find a “Policy presentation element ‘Estonian’ in referenced presentation”. And in this instance, the settings of the GPO do not load. That’s a bit of a problem.

Save yourself the hassle. Just replace the SearchOCR.admx and .adml files as directed in the referenced article above. Once I did that the issue went away.

Sometimes, as IT folks, we just try to be too clever.