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TechNet: Group Policy for Beginners

Alan Burchill — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 02:01:51 +0000

Having used Group Policy almost every working day of my life it is easy to forget that sometime the basic stuff is still a challenge to get your head around. Therefore Microsoft has just released a document (and web page) that is an excellent primer for anyone just starting to use Group Policy. See links below.

Introduces Group Policy, provides an overview of what you can do with Group Policy, describes essential concepts that you must know, and provides step-by-step instructions for the most common Group Policy tasks.

HTML Version: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh147307(WS.10).aspx

Docx Version: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=470526da-8350-4314-a48d-ca97721855e1

TechNet: AGPM Production GPO’s

Alan Burchill — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 22:53:03 +0000

I have posted about the Advanced Group Policy Management (aka AGPM) server tool previously explaining how to install it and use in in your environment to safely modify your Group Policies Object However Ned Pyle from Microsoft has done a post that goes into great detail what happen behind the scenes when you “Control” or makes changes to existing uncontrolled GPO’s in AGPM (see below).

Check it out his article at http://blogs.technet.com/b/askds/archive/2011/01/31/agpm-production-gpos-under-the-hood.aspx

Fixing Active Directory Time Sync Issues

Alan Burchill — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 08:00:00 +0000

You might think that AD time sync in your organisation is something that just works out of the box but Sander Berkouwer has just done a post about what you need to do to setup time sync for Windows Server 2008 & R2. Apparently the default time sync server for Windows Server 2003 (time.windows.com) no long works so you need to make sure that you DC are configured with a valid time source.

Check out the whole article here The things that are better left unspoken : Active Directory Time Sync (broken by default)

Tip: One of the steps in the article is to configure the time server using the “w32tim” command on your PDC emulator. You can do this via Group Policy Preferences using the scheduled task option and then use Item-Level Targeting to only apply the command to the computer name of your PDC Emulator. By scheduling this command on a regular basis you can ensure that the time zone list of the server gets refreshed to the proper values periodically.

Active Directory and Group Policy… Would you like to know more?

Alan Burchill — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 01:01:34 +0000

Ned Pyle from the Active Directory Service team has just done a super post to the Ask the Directory Services Team called Post-Graduate AD Studies. This is a collection of links to pretty much every AD/Group Policy related TechNet article known to man. Definitely a post that you will want to bookmark to use as a reference whenever you have any AD or Group Policy related problems or questions.

Below is a list of all the Group Policy related articles that are listed in the post:

Check out the whole article at: Post-Graduate AD Studies – Ask the Directory Services Team – Site Home – TechNet Blogs.

P.S. Can anyone pick where I got the inspiration for the title?

Jeremy Moskowitz (Group Policy MVP) interview by Matt Hester

Alan Burchill — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 03:19:50 +0000

Jeremy Moskowitz (fellow Group Policy MVP) has just appeared in an interview with Matt Hester on Bytes by TechNet web site.

They covered how IT Professionals start with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, why they need to know about Group Policy and what is new with Group Policy in Windows 7. Jeremy also highlighted some tips for his IT Pro peers related to some components of Group Policy including the Central Store.

Check out the video below:

This video should work with Silverlight or HTML5 video supported browsers.

Out Now: TechEd Group Policy Session Video’s

Alan Burchill — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 08:00:00 +0000

This year Microsoft are now making available for everyone the videos screen cast from the TechEd USA conference on the TechEd web site. So if you attended TechEd USA this year but didn’t get to see all the sessions or if you just missed out on going all together you can now check out all the session at http://www.msteched.com

For your convince I have embedded the Group Policy specific video’s below.

How to Save Money, Time, and Headaches with Group Policy in Windows 7 / Windows Server 2008 R2

MDOP: Advanced Group Policy Management 4.0

AppLocker: Your Solution for True Application Smackdown

Group Policy Team Blog : Visual C# Samples Using the GPMC Class Library Published!

Alan Burchill — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:45:42 +0000

Tom Archer just wrote a blog post about four new sample C# programs that interface with the Group Policy Management Console to perform general group policy tasks in Active Directory. These are some very usefull sample if you are looking at writing your onw applications for automaitcing Group Policy object tasks.

Sample’s are:

How to Back Up All GPOs in a Domain
How to Restore a Domain’s GPOs
How to Import GPOs from a Backup
How to List Unlinked GPOs in a Domain

Check out the articel here Group Policy Team Blog : Visual C# Samples Using the GPMC Class Library Published!

What are Group Policy Preferences

Alan Burchill — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 09:50:43 +0000

Group Policy Preferences have been out for about 3 years now and so there have been a number web posts about what they are and how they are implemented. So I have created a list of links to other articles that from the Group Policy Team Blog and ohter places that help explain what Preference are and how you can use them in your environemtn.

Third Party Links

Microsoft Links

My take…

Group Policy Preferences are a heap of new Group Policy settings that were released with Windows Server 2008 that allows IT administrators to pretty much do anything they want to configured computers in an corporate environmnet. Preferences only require a Windows 2000 Active Directory and they need to be manageded from a minumum of Windows Vista/2008 however they can be applied to Windows XP Service Pack 2 (or greater) workstations.

You can see all the articles on this site about Group Policy Preferences at http://www.grouppolicy.biz/tag/group-policy-preferences/

Loopback Policy Processing Debug Series – Replace Mode | CB5 Blog

Alan Burchill — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 10:20:50 +0000

Now all three post’s by Rich Crandall showing in great detail the modes of Group Policy Loopback.

Loopback Policy Processing Debug Series – Merge Mode | CB5 Blog

Alan Burchill — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 02:26:54 +0000

Rich has just posted Part 2 of the in depth look at at loopback group policy processing has just been posted. Check it out at CB5 Blog | Loopback Policy Processing Debug Series – Merge Mode

Loopback Policy Processing Debug Series – Normal Mode | CB5 Blog

Alan Burchill — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 10:44:41 +0000

Ever wanted to know how loopback group policy really worked. Well Rich Crandall on the CB5 Blog has just done a the first post in a three part series talking about how loopback policy is applied.

Check it out at CB5 Blog | Loopback Policy Processing Debug Series – Normal Mode

Automate Group Policy Preferences printer-management using Windows PowerShell

Alan Burchill — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 22:20:35 +0000

Jan Egil’s has just written a good blog post explaining how to use Power Shell with Group Policy Preferences to easily setup multiple printer connections. If you have ever had to make printer connections with Group Policy Preferences you will know that it is a real easy to copy a printer connection. However it is a real pain to then modify the printer path and targeting… again… and again… and again… and again… Definitely worth a read if you use Group Policy Preferences to manage your printer connection in your organisation.

Check out the article at Automate Group Policy Preferences printer-management using Windows PowerShell « Jan Egil`s Admin-Blog

Windows XP Power Management and Group Policy Preferences Behaviour Explained

Alan Burchill — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 05:01:17 +0000

Ever wondered why the behaviour of Group Policy Preferences Power Plan never worked the way you expected? Well Ned Pyle from Microsoft has written a really good article explaining this behaviour.

http://blogs.technet.com/askds/archive/2009/12/11/windows-xp-power-management-and-group-policy-preferences.aspx

See my Group Policy article re-published Here and HERE!!

Alan Burchill — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 02:00:18 +0000

My recent Group Policy showing how to apply different power plan’s in Windows using Group Policy during different times of the day has picked up some traction and it has now been re-blogged twice.

First mention was on the Green IT Strategy (see below)

See the whole article at http://www.greenitstrategy.com/blog/67-power-management/162-alan-burchill-how-to-use-group-policy-preferences-to-manage-windows-power-plans

And the second has been on the Microsoft Group Policy Team which has re-published my article in full… AWESOME!!!!

See the whole article at http://blogs.technet.com/grouppolicy/archive/2009/09/30/configuring-a-power-plan-with-group-policy-preferences-by-alan-burchill.aspx

Alan Burchill