Cannot Add Office Administrative Templates on Windows Server 2012 R2

You might run into a problem when trying to Add administrative templates in GPO on Windows Server 2012 R2.

After you have downloaded the administrative templates from Microsoft website and tried to add a new template using Add/Remove Templates in GPO you have probably run into a problem.

When browsing the folder with administrative templates you can’t select any template that can be added to the policy.

In order to solve this you have to do the following:

Copy the ADMX files to:
C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions
or if you’re using a Central Store the location should be:
\\%yourdomain.local%\SYSVOL\%yourdomain.local%\Policies\PolicyDefinitions

Now, copy the language files from en-US or other folders, depends on the language you are using to:

C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions\en-US
or
\\%yourdomain.local%\SYSVOL\%yourdomain.local%\PolicyDefinitions

Now try to open a new group policy object and in the left pane navigate to:
User Configuration | Policies | Administrative Templates: Policy definitions (ADMX files) retrieved from the central store

You should see the new templates.

Hope this helps!