Office templates controlled by GPO error

Question

Hi, we configured our Group Policy to force usage of office templates from specific path (Network).
we created shared folder for read to everyone and configuredet policy, its looks working but every time the users try to exit they get popup that ask them to Save AS (the default)  "normal" template and its very annoying.. someone know what
should be the solution for that ? 
i guess the ofice try to write into that file but its read only so its popup the save AS  but what will happen if i give read write permission ? there are 150 users in our company and i dont think it will be a good idea to let this "normal"
template be writable...
I hope someone could help us.
Thanks

Answer 1

Hi,
you can use the GPO ADMX templates to configure the "Workgroup templates path".
This actually configures a registry setting named: "sharedtemplates".
The registry value/type/data is:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\office\15.0\common\general
Name: sharedtemplates
Type: REG_EXPAND_SZ (Expandable String Value)
Data: <UNC path to folder>
From the GPO reference workbook/sheet, for Office:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/4976.selected-content-relating-to-group-policy-administrative-templates-adm-and-admx.aspx
Filename: office15.admx 
Scope: User 
Path: Microsoft Office 2013\Shared paths 
Policy Setting Name: Workgroup templates path 
Supported on: At least Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows 7 
Category: Shared paths 
Explain Text: Specifies the location of workgroup templates. 
Registry Key: HKCU\software\policies\microsoft\office\15.0\common\general!sharedtemplates
Note: it is supported to populate this setting, with a UNC path, but not with a web path.
e.g.: \\server01\shared\templates <this is valid>
e.g.: http://server01/shared/templates <this is not valid>
This constraint (for web URIs) can be difficult to work around. If you are using SharePoint, and think WebDAV might work, it doesn't seem to work for us :(
Of course, if you have SharePoint, there are much better ways to handle document templates, but, our users are familiar with this File -> New -> from template type of method...
It can also be set manually by a user:
Don
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