The participants in this protocol are the following:
An administrative tool plug-in that is used to author and upload configuration settings (both policies and associated data files).
A server acting as a generic binary large object (BLOB) store with no protocol-specific knowledge.
A client with a client-side plug-in and a version of Internet Explorer.
The administrator can specify configuration information through a user interface provided by the administrative tool plug-in. The administrative tool plug-in then encodes the configuration information into one or more data files, and then copies the files into the generic BLOB store. The location of these files is stored in a GPO. The administrative tool uses the Group Policy: Core Protocol to store this GPO in Active Directory.
The Group Policy: Core Protocol specifies how a client can learn of an updated policy (as specified in [MS-GPOL] section 1.3.3) and, based on identifiers associated with each GPO, invoke an appropriate client-side plug-in. In the case of the Group Policy: Internet Explorer Maintenance Extension protocol, this client-side plug-in then retrieves the files contained in the GPO, copying them from a well-known location in the generic BLOB store ("\user\Microsoft\IEAK") to the client, where they will be processed later by Internet Explorer components.<1>
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