I am chewing on the mysteries of migrating GPO settings and preferences to Citrix WEM (metaphorically of course) and hoping someone who reads this can give insights. After some time working with a customer who wants to put all of their AD GPO processing completely into the hands of WEM, I am still trying to understand some things. I jumped in with the customer with the idea of using only the Web Console if possible. We started by attempting to take each of their GPOs and back them up and bring them in using the registry based group policy import button in the Web Console. For some GPOs this worked (hurrah!) and the GPOs that were imported were visible as a set of individual registry entries. Some backup files gave an error (Import Failed. Zip file invalid) when attempting to import them and some processed with no error but were empty or only had some of the settings from the GPO present. It feels like maybe some types of GPOs are ignored and some (preferences I think) give a 'zip file invalid' error. We moved over to the Legacy console. The GPOs that failed to import using the Web console successfully imported into the Legacy console, they came in as registry value actions and showed up as a long list of registry entries (the customer was not especially pleased with this because he had no way to easily manage or understand which individual settings these registry entries pertained to). Can someone point me to any information out there on the differences between the Migrate/Restore/Import mechanisms for the Legacy vs the Web console for the different types of policies and preferences? I would like to understand the following: *What types of policies can be imported using the registry based group policy import button in the Web console? *Does this process ignore some types of policies completely? *Is there any leading practice suggested for a comprehensive approach to migrating policies? Any insights welcome.

@Sharp Guo can maybe give an answer? 🤷‍♂️

I don't understand the logic if bringing in existing GPO's into the WEM service. GPP replacement, I 100% completely get, but ADMX? Why? ADMX based policies are typically highly efficient to apply, give you loads of visibility and control, and whilst WEM does a great job with the new GPO engine - it's probably not wise to try and get it to replace the existing GPO estate for minimal gain Re the import, make sure you aren't screwing with the GUID of the policy exported, leave it exactly as it comes out in the backup

There are some differences between the web console and the legacy console. For legacy console, it supports the migration. It will convert the GPP to the WEM actions, such as the printer, network drivers, registry entries, etc.

does wem refresh gpo periodically like actual group policy? for example, say i have a gpo applying a reg key at a top level that i put in a different value at the wem level for some customization. Will the group policy then overwrite that wem setting when gpo refreshes, then will wem refresh on its own?

Thank you everyone for your help. @James Kindon As far as ADMX policies the customer is thinking that traditional AD is starting to go away and they want the flexibility of having WEM manage everything, we are doing a POC to see if they really want to. As for the GPO backup file, we learned not to change the name (with GUID) of the GPO backup file, especially in the legacy console where it just will not work if the name changes. The web console seems to import the file the same whether we rename the GPO backup file or not.