Group Policy Central

If you have have been using the some what simple hack I mentioned to make Group Policy Preference work with Internet Explorer 9 you will be relieved to know that Microsoft have now fixed an official hotfix to make this work.

You can get read the full Microsoft Kb article at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2530309 .

However you should take special attention at the two notes:

This update does not re-write the version information for existing settings. Instead, you must define a new set of Internet Explorer settings in a new or existing Group Policy Object.

Meaning you will need to re-created the Group Policy Preference before the policy will apply to a computer running IE9.

This update does not create a new Internet Explorer 9 UI item. However, when define new Group Policy Preferences settings, and you select the Internet Explorer 8 option, this setting now applies both to Internet Explorer 8 and to Internet Explorer 9

This means that you will NOT see an Internet Explorer 9 option in the Internet Settings menu (see image below), however using the IE8 option will work with IE9.

If we take a closer look at the “InternetSettings.xml” after the hotfix has been applied shows the maximum version number is now set to “10.0.0.0” where previously this version was “9.0.0.0”. However you existing Internet Explorer Preferences will remain unaffected…

Thanks to Mark Feetham [MSFT] for leaving a comment on my previous blog post about this new hotfix.

Download it now from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2530309

I have seen this issue be raised many many many many many many times on the Group Policy forums so I thought I would quick do a blog post about this new fix from Microsoft to make the “reconnect” flag work properly for drive mappings. The hotfix KB2551503 fixes “A mapped drive that has the non-persistent flag set is displayed as a disconnected drive in Windows 7 or in Windows Server 2008 R2”.

Description:

Assume that you use Group Policy Preferences (GPP) to manage the mapping of drives in a network environment. Additionally, you set the non-persistent flag when you map a drive on a client computer that is running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2. However, when the client computer is not connected to the network, the mapped drive is displayed unexpectedly as a disconnected drive in Windows Explorer.

So what are you waiting for View and request hotfix downloads NOW!

I mentioned last week a few new Group Policy related Knowledge base articles that were just released / updated. Well Scott Goad from one of my favourite blogs (Ask the Directory Service Team) just published a round up of all the Active Directory KB articles from 6th Feb to 19th Feb . So for your convenience I have extracted the relevant GP related KB articles and listed them below.

KB977611 – After you apply a GPO to redirect a folder to a new network share, the redirected folder is empty on client computers that are running Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008

KB976033 – "Terminal Session" targeting item does not work for a Group Policy preferences setting on a client computer that is running Windows Server 2008 or Windows Vista

KB2493933 – FIX: The "Validate server certificate" option is enabled on a computer that is running Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008 when you disable this option by using a Group Policy object

KB2460922 – Group Policy preference item-level targeting does not work for 64-bit versions of Windows 7

KB2301288 – A Remote Desktop Services session is disconnected automatically if you apply the "Interactive logon: smart card removal behavior" Group Policy setting in Windows Server 2008 R2 or in Windows 7

Microsoft today  announced (after what seems to be a very long time) they have RTM’d Windows 7 / Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 and it will be released to the public on February 22nd.

Update: Service Pack 1 is now available for download for TechNet and MSDN subscribers.

Previously I had listed the hotfixes in the beta version of the service pack, so I have again combed through the hotfix list for you convenience and I have updated the list to include the release candidate hotfixes. While this is not the final list of hotfixes Ned Pyle [MSFT] says “it’s very doubtful that the lists below will be altered much” so you can pretty much take the following list as final. In any case I will review the list when the final list of fixes is out but for now here is the list of issues.

Updated: The final list of hotfixes is now out ( Here ) and after a quick look they appear to be the same as expected.

If you have anything to do with supporting group policy in your organisation then I recommend that you at least take a look at the articles to see if you have encountered any of the problem described.

You can also see the complete list of Active Directory Hotfix’s at Ask the Directory Services Team blog posting SP1 and Directory Services: What’s New .

Microsoft have recently released a couple of hotfixes relating to Group Policy. As you are probably aware there are a number of Group Policy related hotfixes in Windows 7 / Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 which is about to be released (on Feb 22nd 2011) however these two particular patches are listed as being required even for Service Pack 1.

I do note that KB981704 has been out for a while and seems to have been just updated to reflect that it is still required for Service Pack 1.

KB981704 – The file name of an ADM file is displayed incorrectly in the GPMC report in Windows Vista, in Windows Server 2008, in Windows 7 or in Windows Server 2008 R2.

KB2460922 – Group Policy preference item-level targeting does not work for 64-bit versions of Windows 7