PrecedenceReason Property
For types of policy other than application management policy, there can be only one reason why a policy setting would "lose" to another policy setting. This type of conflict occurs when the same identifier (id property) exists in two different GPOs. An example of this conflict is when there is a registry policy setting for a particular software application in two different GPOs. (In this case, the setting in the GPO "closest" to the target wins.) Because there can be only one type of conflict, there is no need to define an additional property to describe the conflict. Administrators can identify and modify the policy settings to ensure the application of a particular policy using only the policy setting precedence property.
For application management policy however, there can be several additional reasons that explain why one application "loses" to another application.
The following list describes reasons why why one application "loses" to another application:
- When an upgrade relationship exists, the relationship can cause one application to install rather than another.
- When there are multiple applications with the same ProdID in a GPO, one application "defeats" the others.
- When there are multiple applications with the same ProdID in a GPO, but their LanguageId properties differ, one application "defeats" the others.
In the previous instances it is a complex task to identify why one policy setting causes the installation of one software application rather than another. Application management policies therefore, require an additional property, the PrecedenceReason property, to indicate the reason for a policy setting precedence.
PrecedenceReason describes the reason why one instance of the RSOP_ApplicationManagementPolicySetting class has a lower precedence property value (a higher ranking) than an instance with the next highest value. PrecedenceReason is the reason why one software application "loses" to another software application.
The following table lists possible values:
| Value | Description |
|---|---|
| Language | The application language is a better match for the target. |
| Product | The application ProdID conflicts with the "losing" application. |
| Upgrade | The application upgrades the "losing" application. |
| Highest | The application is the "winning" application. |
| NonForced | Although the application upgraded the "winning" application, the upgrade was an optional one rather than a required one. |
For more information, see RSOP_ApplicationManagementPolicySetting.