If you plan to use the Microsoft App-V Stand-Alone Mode some Registry Settings are required for the Application Virtualization Client as described in detail on this App-V site here. But instead of setting these registry keys manually or through a custom script, you can also manage these settings through Group Policy.
Once you have added the ADM Template to your GPO object you can find them under the “Classic Administrative Templates (ADM)” branch as shown in the picture below.
Then configure the Group Policy Settings as shown below.
Once the GPO is enabled run the command gpupdate /force on the client to ensure that all GPO settings get applied. Then open the Registry Editor and validate that all settings are configured as described here
Now install your previously sequenced application through the generated MSI installation package. If all goes well, you should be able to launch your Virtual Application in Stand-Alone mode now.
Just going through an AGPM Installation (Advanced Group Policy Management) where I had to choose an Account for the AGPM Service which can be the Local System Account or a domain user account. Instead of just clicking next next…. I found some good guidance in the Ask the Directory Services Team blog – AGPM Least Privilege Scenario article. Also read Locking down AGPM fit for least privilege.
Never heard of AGPM before ? Then watch this 4-5 minute Tour on Advanced Group Policy Management. And finally here’s a video provided by Kurt Roggen showing how to install the AGPM Server.
One of the things to consider when deploying Windows 7 clients is to update the Central Store on your domain controllers. If you haven’t created a Central Store yet, I recommend you watch the video or read the documentation I have listed at the end of this post.
If you do have a Central Store already, updating it with the Windows 7 Group Policy Administrative templates is very straight forward. You simply copy the templates that are stored under C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions on your Windows 7 client to the Central Store which is located at \\FQDN\SYSVOL\FQDN\policies\PolicyDefinitions (FQDN = fully qualified domain name)
A good alternative for copying the files manually is the Vista Central Store Creator Utility from Darren Mar-Elia which automates the whole process of creating and updating the Central Store.
Group Policies and Group Policy Preferences are great technologies to manage your enterprise desktops. But what if you want to go beyond the features Microsoft has build into the Group Policy Management Console?
With PolicyPak you can consistently manage ANY application’s settings using the Windows native Group Policy technology. have a look at the PolicyPak introduction video below to learn what PolicyPak can do and how it works.
Well as you might notice Group Policy management currently is my favorite topic. I’ve been doing GPOs since the year 2000, then for a long while due to my job role I haven’t been doing a lot with GPOs, but that didn’t matter since there wasn’t too much changing in that space except that with each OS release the number of GPO settings has been growing.
But since the introduction of Windows Vista, there have been some bigger changes around GPO management. One of these changes is the use of the Central ADMX Store. The Central ADMX Store plays an important role, so it is important understanding the concept.
Watch the video from TechNetEdge presented by John Baker. By the way on the gpoguy website you can find the free Vista Central Store Creator utility that helps automating this task.
In the past weeks Jeremy has put an additional great amount of effort in reworking the offerings, so that now you have the possibility of selecting and ordering individual Modules and and options. Additionally there are some very attractive payment options as well that might be interesting for those that don’t get their company paying it for them, but want to invest in their personal knowledge.
There are now 3 different GPO Online University options:
Build your own
Silver Package
Gold Package
The Build your own package allows you to select the individual options that just fit for your needs. So for those that already have bought the GPO books from Jeremy and don’t think they need pre-configured hard drive labs, they can just order the training and documentation material (labs, videos, slides).
Interested ? Then click here and get straight to the GPO Online University starting page or if you don’t want to read the details (because you already did) and can’t wait to place an order, then go here.
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Today Jeremy Moskowitz has launched the Group Policy Online University. Taking into account that many companies in these days have restrictive travel and training policies, the Online University seems to be an excellent way how you can further extend your knowledge around Group Policy Management without the need to attend a live training e.g. you can attend the training at any time, from everywhere.
The only thing you need to do now is to convince your manager that it is worth the money
Yesterday Microsoft released the Release Candidate for Internet Explorer 8 that of course contains a lot of new features that I am not going to rewrite here again, as others did so already.
Reading the IE8 product group blog 100 additional group policy settings are being introduced to extend manageability of IE8 through Group Policy Management. The updated Group Policy Reference including the new IE8 settings can be downloaded here and updated Group Policy Settings ADM files can be found here. Also worth reading is the IE8 Deployment Guide.
And finally for those that want to prevent IE8 being installed in an uncontrolled way throughout their infrastructure can consider using the IE8 blocker toolkit. The IE8 blocker toolkit provides 2 methods to prevent IE8 being automatically installed on your client devices. Method 1 consists of a batch file and Method 2 is a group policy adm template that allows you to configure IE8 installation blocking through GPO.
The XmlLite runtime file, Xmllite.dll, is integrated into the following operating systems and products:
Windows Server 2008
Windows Vista
Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 2 or later.
Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0 and later.
The XmlLite runtime is also available as a download from the XmlLite Update Page for the following operating systems:
Windows Server 2003 (32-bit with Service Pack 1 or x64 Editions)
Windows XP (32-bit with Service Pack 2 or x64 Editions)
So if you want to use GPO Preferences on a Windows XP SP2 client with Internet Explorer 6, you will need to install the XMLLite runtime package for XP.
Usually when you need a report for a given Group Policy object, you would launch the Group Policy Management Console, select the GPO and then select the settings tab that produces the report.
But what if you need a report for multiple or even all your GPOs you have within your Active Directory ? Going through each GPO and produce the report manually is going to take ages and is boring.
My colleague Rudi recently found a script that automatically creates GPO reports it finds within your AD. You can select them individually or simply report on all.
The script is stored on the Win32 Scripting site which is a usefull resource for admin scripts since many years. The GPO reporting script can be found here
