I mentioned previously that I might be attending TechEd Europe this year to present on Windows Server 2008 R2 Group Policy changes. Well its confirmed. I am definitely coming! (Yeah!!) So I started to think about what you might like to see from my...

From the Newsgroups: "Hi! In order to use all of windows 7 AD Policies you need to be running Windows Server 2008 R2?Can i get a list of Group Policies that i cannot be leveraging when a windows 7 client is in a windows 2003 domain? ...

It’s Friday and it’s sunny in my neighborhood, which means it is blog posting time! Let’s talk about WMI filters today, shall we? If I have WMI Filters and Group Policy Preferences targeting, do they cancel out? Does one have precedence? Will the world...

As many of you know Group Policy troubleshooting can be a bit of a challenge. If you have not made use of the Group Policy operational logs that were introduced in Windows Vista, you are missing out on an extremely handy troubleshooting tool. On any Vista...

We had a great customer question today on AGPM 3.0 that would probably interest quite a few of you using AGPM. "...A customer imports some GPOs [into AGPM] in order to change control them. Some of the GPOs have Deny permission for particular users...

You configured a setting in one GPO and want to know what that setting is across all GPO’s. You want to check that a setting is not being overwritten by another GPO in the same domain (without checking through every settings report). Sound...

The scene: Backups take up space, but they’re a crucial part of GPO management. Ideally, one would do regular backups (monthly? weekly? your call) but only of the GPOs that have changed. This script will do that for you and print out a nice settings report...

It’s come to my attention (in a blunt object kind of way) that you’ve been waiting to migrate from Windows XP to Windows 7, bypassing Windows Vista. In case you’ve done the same with your servers, you’ve got some fun work coming up (but lots of cool features...

Just had a question come through about 'Restricted Groups'. One of the original extensions to GP, increadibly powerful and helpful to admins who need to have better control over local group memberships. There are some scenarios that 'Restricted Groups...

I set a Preference setting, but it didn’t work. The answer? Probably F5-F6-F7-F8. GP Preferences has a ton of compelling reasons to use it; the functionality allows admins to configure settings that are difficult to impossible to achieve through...

The Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) provides a comprehensive set of COM interfaces that you can use to script many of the operations supported by the console. This download contains a set of sample scripts that make use of these interfaces. ...

I’d like to give a big shout out to Sean Gallinetti for providing the custom ADM example files. One use of creating and setting the default value of a registry key is creating the list of blocked and allowed cookies to configure the per site privacy...

For those of you gearing up for a new year of administering Group Policy, here's some links to articles and blogs that cover different aspects of Group Policy. Some of these blogs do not have Group Policy as the main focus, but Group Policy touches on...

Last week I introduced new Power Management policy settings included in Windows Vista. In the first of a two-part series, I wrote about Button, Hard Disk, and Notification settings. This week, I complete my review of Power Management by writing about...

I was thinking this past weekend on what exactly should I blog, specifically what about Group Policy. It occurred to me, we have a many new policy settings shipping with Windows Vista. There are too many to list individually so I decide the blog would...

Last week I finished my ramblings about Power Management and Group Policy. I decided to change this week’s discussion…sort of. My earlier blogs were about new registry-based policy settings. However, this week I want to focus on security policy settings...

I'm guessing many Group Policy administrators already know this (it's been two whole days since this was announced!!) but just in case... The Group Policy team at Microsoft is very excited about the recent announcement of acquisition of Desktop Standard...

Hi all... I know this is way off topic but thought, in the spirit of blogging, this may have some relevance for some readers. In my work I am often writting up ideas, trying to elaborate on a thought on paper where images are critical and <ALT...

Hey everyone! If you haven't seen it you need to check it out ( GPLogView ). This tool is very cool and can really help you drill down into what is happening with Group Policy. It is simple to get up and running and simple to operate. It is primarily...

Hey Group Policy Advocates! The Office team published a great “how to” on installing Office 2007 using Group Policy. The Office 2007 Resource Kit includes this documentation. You can view it online at the Microsoft TechNet site. Here’s a direct...

Have you ever deployed a script using Group Policy and wondered why it didn’t run? The Group Policy team has published a series of articles to address this question. Part 1 shows you how to go about discovering the reason, focusing on how to determine...

Great News. The Group Policy team has published new packages to the Download Center. ADMX Sample files ( http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=86092 ) Overview This download provides two sets of sample files, created in the ADM and ADMX formats. ...

I know, TechEd 2007 , wasn't it like a year ago? OK only a few weeks ago but I should have gotten this posted sooner. I unfortunately wasn't able to attend this year but have heard it was *awesome* . The Group Policy team was very well represented we...

It's been a great few days here at Microsoft, what with Microsoft Office 2007, Windows Vista and Zune all being released! After a long (loooonnnngg) road, we on the Group Policy team are very excited to see how customers benefit from the fruits of our...

We released new documentation on Group Policy, Folder Redirection, and User Profiles. Also, we released a spreadsheet that includes Group Policy settings from Windows Vista Beta 2 and we are working on a RC1 version. Step-by-Step Guide to Managing...