The Group Policy team at Microsoft would like to hear from you about how you currently manage your servers and server-based applications and how you’d like manage them in the future.  Please take this anonymous online survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=9rTLNIcDd2kuU8addj0iUw_3d_3d by July 15^th and help shape the future of server manageability!

Thanks so much!

The Group Policy Team

Now available: the Group Policy Documentation Survival Guide. Print it out, laminate it, tape it to your wall.

You will survive.

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=117638

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=116434

Administrative templates provide Group Policy setting information for the items that appear under Administrative Templates. Group Policy tools use Administrative template files to populate policy settings in the user interface. This allows administrators to manage registry-based policy settings.

Administrative template files in Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista are divided into ADMX (language-neutral) and ADML (language-specific) files. ADML files are XML-based ADM language files that are stored in a language-specific folder. By default, the %Systemroot%\PolicyDefinitions folder on a local computer stores all ADMX files, and ADML files for all languages that are enabled on the computer.

Download today!

GP Team (CraigLi)

This post is not explicitly about Group Policy, but we thought you'd find it useful for our content and any other content you navigate and read on Microsoft.com.

Have you ever encountered a Microsoft URL that looks like http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=63080? No doubt you have, and no doubt you have wondered what all of that seemingly unrelated goobledygook has to do with Group Policy or whatever product you are reading about.

Here's the explanation. We call these strange-looking URLs "FWLinks" or "forward links." We use them because it's far easier to change on the back end the target of a published URL than it is to find every last instance of a "real" URL on Live Web sites and update those, if a change occurs. Clear as mud? Trust us--it's the better way to do things. :)

Here's a trick: If you ever see one of these forward links, just write down the number at the very end. In the example above, you would write down 63080. Now go to your favorite search engine--Live Search, of course--and type:

linkid 63080   (or whatever your linkid number happens to be)

The first result will be the forward link, and you are on your way without having to write down or remember all the other stuff that comes before it in the forward link.

CraigLi

In the last week, we have published a new dedicated page that covers DesktopStandard transition and support information:

http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/en/technologies/featured/gp/desktopstandard.mspx

Why publish this page now? The DesktopStandard Web site will be redirected to this page starting in the next week or so. We needed to have somewhere that customers could land and not have a broken experience.

We have also updated the DesktopStandard section of the Group Policy FAQ: http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/en/technologies/featured/gp/faq.mspx#ENAAE.

We will be publishing legacy DesktopStandard documentation to the Microsoft Download Center later this month.

Craig

Now available, Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) is the collection of Windows Server management tools provided to enable IT professionals to manage their Windows Server infrastructure from their computers running Windows Vista with Service Pack 1. RSAT is available as a separate download rather than as part of another product.

Install RSAT from the following locations:

·         Microsoft Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows Vista with SP1 (x86): http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=9FF6E897-23CE-4A36-B7FC-D52065DE9960

Microsoft Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows Vista with SP1(x64): http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=D647A60B-63FD-4AC5-9243-BD3C497D2BC5

Availability

RSAT is available to all customers as part of supplemental Microsoft Software License Terms to Windows Vista licenses.

RSAT Questions and Answers

Q.        Why is Microsoft making RSAT available?

A.        Many IT professionals manage their servers from their own desktops. RSAT enables IT professionals to use the updated Windows Server 2008 management tools to manage their servers remotely from their own computers.

Q.        Which operating systems does RSAT manage?

A.        All RSAT tools manage Windows Server 2008 servers. Certain RSAT tools also manage servers running Windows Server 2003.

Q.        Is RSAT the next version of ADMINPAK.MSI?

A.        Yes. As ADMINPAK.MSI provides IT professionals the ability to remotely manage their Windows Server 2003 servers, RSAT provides updated functionality for Windows Server management from computers running Windows Vista with Service Pack 1. All RSAT tools support the management of servers running Windows Server 2008; some of these tools also support the management of servers running Windows Server 2003, and thus can be considered a replacement for ADMINPAK.MSI.

Q.        Will RSAT run on the version of Windows Vista with no service packs installed?

A.        No. RSAT requires Windows Vista with Service Pack 1.

Q.        Will RSAT include Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) for Windows Vista with SP1?

A.        Yes.

Q:        Will the GPMC provided by RSAT allow me to manage Group Policy preference items from a computer running Windows Vista with SP1?

A.        Yes.

Q.        What tools does RSAT include?

A.        RSAT includes the following tools and features:

Role Administration Tools managing Windows Server 2008 servers:

•          Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS) Tools

•          Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) Tools

•          Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS) Tools

•          DHCP Server Service Tools

•          DNS Server Service Tools

•          Shared Folders Tools

•          Network Policy and Access Services Tools

•          Terminal Services Tools

•          Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) Services Tools

Feature Administration Tools managing Windows Server 2008 servers:

•          BitLocker Drive Encryption Tools

•          Failover Clustering Tools

•          Group Policy Management Tools

•          Network Load Balancing Tools

•          SMTP Server Tools

•          Storage Manager for SANs Tools

•          Windows System Resource Manager Tools

The tools in the following list are fully supported managing Windows Server 2003 servers:

•           Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) Tools

•           Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS) Tools

•           Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS) Tools

•           DHCP Server Tools

•           DNS Server Tools

•           Group Policy Management Tools

•           Network Load Balancing Tools

•           Terminal Services Tools

•           Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) Services Tools

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 Policy evolved out of what was called "System Policies." These were what we now call the Administrative Template extension or registry-based policy settings. These settings are considered to be "true" policy settings as opposed to what was then termed "preference" settings. What is the difference between GP policy settings and preferences?

GP policy settings will:

1. not tattoo. In other words, when a Group Policy object (GPO) goes out of scope, the policy setting is removed allowing the original configuration value to be used.
2. supersede an application's configuration setting. In other words, when a GP policy is configured to a value, the application is aware of that value and always uses it over the configurable value.
3. be recognized by an application. In other words, the display of the configuration item under control of a GP policy setting will be unavailable through the user interface. This is where graying out a configuration item on a menu, not displaying a dialog box, or providing a pop-up message explaining the current feature is under administrator control is used to inform the user they can't configure an option.

Preference settings will:

1. tattoo. In other words, when a GPO goes out of scope, the preference value will remain in the registry. An administrator is responsible for making sure these values are set to disable, prior to the GPO going out of scope, if the administrator wants the preference setting removed. The preference setting will not be replaced with the original application configuration value.
2. overwrite an application's configuration setting. This is accomplished by overwriting the original user configured-value for the application. No effort is made to retain the original value before overwriting the value with the preference setting. And, as was noted in 1, the overwritten value will not be removed when the GPO goes out of scope.
3. not be recognized by an application. In other words, the application's user interface will allow a user to change the configuration item. Most importantly, the Group Policy engine only recognizes when a GPO changes, not when the preference value has been changed. This means the preference setting will be applied once and not automatically reapplied if the user changes the value of the configuration item.

There was a desire to create a registry-based setting that was a melding of the GP policy settings with the preference settings which became the GP preferences. Unlike, preference settings, GP preference settings' behavior is configurable to act differently than a preference setting depending on the options you select.

GP preference settings will:

1. tattoo, by default. In other words, when a Group Policy object (GPO) goes out of scope, the GP preference setting will be remain in the registry.

   However, you can change the behavior of the GP preference setting by selecting the "Remove this item when it is no longer applied" option for a specific GP preference setting. After selecting this option, the GP preference setting will be removed when the GPO goes out of scope.

2. overwrite an application's configuration setting. This is accomplished by overwriting the original user configured-value for the application. The original value will not be retained when the application's configuration setting is overwritten by the GP preference setting.

   If the option to "Remove this item when it is no longer applied" has been selected, the GP preference setting will be removed. The application will use the default configuration value, not a previously set user configuration value.

3. not be recognized by an application. In other words, the application's user interface will allow a user to change the configuration item. By default, the GP preference setting will be automatically reapplied at every GP refresh, not when the application's configuration value has been changed by the user.

   Now the administrator can select the "Apply once and do not reapply" option. This will change the GP preference setting's behavior to only apply the GP preference setting value once and not apply again, even if the user has changed the application's configuration value.

When dealing with registry-based settings the differences between preference settings and GP preferences are subtle. The biggest difference I want to call out here is that while preference settings are always used in connection with registry-based settings, GP preferences can configure more than just registry-based settings. For more information check out the paper providing an overview of Group Policy preferences, http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=103735.

Judith Herman, Group Policy Programming Writer

There's a cool new forum on TechNet for Windows Server 2008/Vista Group Policy topics:

http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=2023&SiteID=17

There has already been some discussion, check it out!