Recent Posts

Posted in Tutorials

How to use Group Policy to configured INI files

INI Files are one of those things that most administrators probably still need to mange in your environment due to one of those (crapy) apps that still not made the jump to registry keys. This is were there INI feature of Group Policy Preferences can be a great help in managing these files. What is really great about this option…

Continue Reading...
Posted in Tip

How to compare Group Policies Objects

If you have a lot of GPO’s in your environment then you know that the process of comparing GPO’s can be enormously time-consuming and difficult. Well fellow Group Policy MVP Darren Mar-Elia (a.k.a. GPOGUY) and CTO & Founder of SDM Software has just released a new version of the GPO Compare tool. This is a super cool tool allows you…

Continue Reading...
Posted in Video

Video: All about Advanced Group Policy Management (a.k.a. AGPM)

A video by fellow MVP Kurt Roggen  has just been released on TechNet Edge about the Advanced Group Policy Management tool. I have posted a few article about AGPM before (starting here) but this video is a great primer for the product talking about what it does, how to install it and how to use the product. Source http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/edge/Video/hh706152

Continue Reading...
Posted in News Tip

Out Now: Official PST to Exchange Import Tool

If you have ever had anything to do with Outlook in your organisation you will no doubt have some experience (pain) with the use of PST files. PST files are of course the main way users can store their email information on their local hard drive or network share (Network stored PST files don’t do it) thus avoiding the email…

Continue Reading...
Posted in News Security

Out Now: Security Compliance Manager v2.5 Beta

Microsoft has just released Security Compliance Manager v2.5 beta https://connect.microsoft.com/site715/program2682 along with a heap of new security baseline for you to use to compare against your environment. In case you are not familiar with SCM then it is a great product from Microsoft that consolidates all the best practice for their software with in-depth explanation for each setting. Notably this…

Continue Reading...
Posted in News

Windows 8 Group Policy Performance Troubleshooting Feature

One of the most common complaints I hear about Group Policy is that it make the log on slow… Well.. I have been using the Windows Developer Preview of Windows 8 for a while now and I have only just discovered a cool new feature that might just help address this issue. When you run a GPRESULT report on a…

Continue Reading...
Posted in Tutorials

How to use Group Policy to deny executing, writing and/or reading on removable disks

Removable memory sticks are the back door for data in any organisation. BitLocker to Go can do some way to controlling this vector however you might want to simple close off all access to removable drives for all your users. So if you are running Windows 7 you will be glad to know there are a heap of Windows 7…

Continue Reading...
Posted in Site News

Group Policy Central turns 2 – We have come a long way baby!

Approximately 2 years ago today the Group Policy Central web site went live. I am very glad to say that it has been going from strength to strength since then… I of course would like to thank all of you for visiting and coming back to my site as it is you the visitor to my site that makes all…

Continue Reading...