Posted in News

Group Policy Caching in Windows 8.1

Another new feature of Group Policy in Windows 8.1 is the ability for it to now cache Group Policy to improve performance when processing synchronous policy settings. Now before you say Windows 8 already starts REALLY FAST how can this make it any faster, this caching only really kicks in some very specific fringe cases. Specifically it improves performance when…

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Posted in News

Group Policy now supports IPv6 Item Level Targeting

As your probably know the world  facing an IP Apocalypse and as such sooner of later we will all have to start embracing IPv6 weather we like it or not. While Windows has supported IPv6 natively for many years now Microsoft has been slowly chipping away at IPv6 support for many of its other products. Well the good news is…

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Posted in Tutorials

How to configure a Boot to Desktop Group Policy for Windows 8.1

With the release of Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview many people are very pleased with the new option called “Go to the desktop instead of Start when I sign in” that allows then to boot direct the the desktop when the logon. If if follow this blog you know I have mentioned this “boot to desktop” option a few time…

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Posted in News

All the new Windows 8.1 Group Policy Administrative Settings

As you probably know Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview is now available for download. For your convenience i have gone thought all the Group Policy administrative settings and listed all the new policy setting for Windows 8.1 / 2012 R2. Some of the settings names are pretty obvious, but other like “Default” and “WinX” are somewhat vague to say the…

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Posted in News

Out Now: Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview

If you have a TechNet subscription you are now able to download the ISO images of the Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview. Also available for download is System Center 2012 R2 Preview and SQL Server 2014 CTP1. What is still missing is Windows 8.1 which is expected to be released on 26th June (27th Australian time) sometime around the start…

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What’s new in Group Policy in Windows Server 2012 R2

Thanks to Orin Thomas blog about Windows Server 2012 R2 I have discovered that Microsoft has released a Windows Server 2012 R2 image on Azure. This has allowed me to run up a Windows 2012 R2 Active Directory so I can crack open and see what is new in Group Policy. Below is a summary of only a VERY quick…

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Posted in News

Out Now: Windows 8.1 RSAT Beta…. Out later: Windows 8.1 Beta

That’s right… Microsoft has put the carriage in front of the horse and released the Windows 8.1 Remote Server Admin Tools before they release Windows 8.1 Beta. In case you are wondering what this has to do with Group Policy, RSAT is how you get the Group Policy Management Console installed on Client operating systems as by default it is…

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Posted in Tutorials

How to configure IIS to support large AD Token with Group Policy

Active Directory Token Bloat is an issue in AD where user are is a member of too many security groups. As such their account exceed the default 12k token size limit in Windows that is set on their internal AD Security Token. This is a common problem for many large organisation that have many security groups and in most situation…

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