Too often, I ask if people are familiar with GP Preferences and get a blank stare. I will say this over and over again: GP Preferences will dramatically reduce your logon scripts GP Preferences has clean, easy-to-use reporting and UI Lots...

New Year, New…console session? Here’s a quick look at creating a new GPO using the Group Policy cmdlets in Windows 7. To create a new GPO from scratch using PowerShell cmdlets: 1. Open an elevated PowerShell console session (1-2 clicks) ...

PowerShell! The name alone should get you excited. Wait until you see all the cool stuff you can do with PowerShell in the Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 release of the Group Policy management tools. For those of you who have yet to learn PowerShell...

To keep you in the loop, many of you have asked whether we intend to provide support for PolicyMaker Preferences and migrate to Windows Server 2008's Group Policy Preferences. I can confirm we are currently testing a tool that will be able to perform...

You might know GP Preferences is great for mapping drives , pushing out shortcuts, and adding new folders. But did you know that you can use GP Preferences to add a printer and set it as default? Check it out: Here’s the Devices and Printers inventory...

Green is the color of the decade, at least for the moment. What can you do from a Group Policy perspective? More than you might think. What do you do to manage power settings with Group Policy? Answer in the comments. Before Al Gore warned about the plight...

Some time ago Michael blogged about a migration tool we were building for PolicyMaker Profiles , which was the precursor to what is now Group Policy Preferences. He had set expectations that this was going to be released by the end of the calendar year...

We often have groups of customers come to Redmond to visit and provide their feedback about the direction in which we are taking our products. Recently, a group of folks joined us for a few days to talk specifically about the desktop and its direction...

At IT Forum in Barcelona , Microsoft publicly announced the upcoming releases of Group Policy preferences and Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT). Where Group Policy preferences will be included Group Policy preferences , formerly known...

The following is a sample script that sets a Preference registry value in a GPO, then compares that same value to all of the GPO's linked in the same domain. If the value is not already set in a linked GPO, the new GPO is linked to that domain as well...

Watch Michael Kleef and I talk about what’s new in Group Policy in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 on TechNet Edge. We’re on the front page today! Go here: http://edge.technet.com/Media/Whats-New-in-Group-Policy/ to check it out. The video’s a bit...

Wow! What a confusing title. So, why did I use this? Your feedback tells us there is some confusion over our terminology for our new extension, Group Policy preferences. And I aim to clear up this confusion in this post. In the beginning of Group...

If you've upgraded your Vista client to SP1, you've found that installing Windows Vista SP1 removes GPMC; installing RSAT will put GPMC back on your client. You can install RSAT from the following locations: Microsoft Remote Server Administration Tools...

Check out these two new overview white papers, published this week in the Microsoft Download Center: Advanced Group Policy Management Overview Group Policy Preferences Overview Craig

Go Office team! They just released the new Administrative Templates for Office 2007 SP2. From the download website: “…This download includes updated Group Policy Administrative Template and Office Customization Tool OPA files; an updated Office Customization...

I just got back from another great MMS in Las Vegas and I’d like to thank everyone who stopped by the booth, attended the Group Policy-related sessions, and asked great questions about Group Policy and AGPM (thanks to Chris for Tweeting about it!). I...

Group Policy Preferences quick tip: To ensure that preferences are applied to clients, make sure that clients have the CSEs and XMLLite installed If you’re like us, you’re seriously excited about Group Policy Preferences. You’re excited because you...

Hi, I’m Florian, one of the Group Policy MVPs . You may know us MVPs from conferences, seminars, books, Newsgroups and Forums where we voluntarily provide help and guidance to Group Policy and its associated products. Today, I’d like to write about a...

The Group Policy settings reference spreadsheet that covers the available administrative template settings and security settings for Windows Server 2012, Windows 8, and all earlier versions of Windows is now available in the download center here: http...

Want to see what firewall ports you’ve configured on every GPO in your domain in under 10 seconds? Want to meet some Group Policy team members? Wish Michael Kleef a happy birthday and watch Lindsay and I walk through the ”Search GPOs for any setting”...

I do not know about you but I LOVE PowerShell, especially the Group Policy cmdlets. Unfortunately, I didn’t have too many opportunities to really use them - but luckily got a chance in preparation for a presentation where I would demo a script that...

Have you ever wanted to configure a preference item to include a specific user name and password? You can do so in several types of preference items, but you should first consider the security ramifications of embedding a user name and password in a preference...

PolicyMaker customers have been waiting for an easy way to migrate their PolicyMaker settings over to Group Policy Preference settings. The solution is finally here!! We have developed a commandline tool that you can run against your environment to find...

Have you ever wanted to configure a preference item to include a specific user name and password? You can do so in several types of preference items, but you should first consider the security ramifications of embedding a user name and password in a preference...

Everyone has their own troubleshooting quick checks; here are some that you may know well, and others you haven’t tried yet. Logon/Logoff Some policies applied only after the second logon, not after the first logon. What’s the deal? Anything...