Patent ID: 8713583

Claim:
A computer system comprising: a workstation having a non-Windows operating system, a tangible computer storage medium with user applications stored therein, and a computer processor; a policy refresh component, stored in the storage medium, that checks whether a Windows native policy stored on a Windows computer and associated with the workstation has been changed; a translator manager, stored in the storage medium, that manages the association of the Windows native policy with the workstation and, upon a determination by the policy refresh component that the Windows native policy has been changed, receives the Windows native policy from the Windows computer; a policy translator, stored in the storage medium, that receives the Windows native policy from the translator manager and translates the Windows native policy into configuration information usable by the non-Windows operating system; an update configuration component, stored in the storage medium, that applies the configuration information usable by the non-Windows operating system by saving the configuration information in a policy-related file on the workstation; wherein the Windows native policy can be read, in its native format, by a Windows operating system to set policy settings for Windows computers but cannot be read, in its native format, by a non-Windows operating system to set policy settings for non-Windows computers; and wherein the Windows native policy is used to set configurable options for at least one computer user, and wherein, after translation by the workstation, the Windows native policy remains centrally managed and updated by the Windows computer, and updates to the Windows native policy are propagated to the workstation, such that use of Windows native policies is extended to allow an administrator to use Windows native policies to manage configuration information on the workstation.