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Since the release of Windows 7 and Server 2008-R2 we have about 3000 Group Policy Settings available to centrally configure and manage Windows clients and servers. Though some among us might have worked with GPO settings from the early days on, knowing about the existence of each and every available setting is nearly impossible. It still happens to me that while I am configuring a specific GPO setting, I do come across other GPOs I didn’t knew of yet.

Have we not all been in a situation once, where we wondered whether a certain system configuration item could be managed via a GPO setting? So what would you do? Open the Group Policy Management Console and browse through the settings until you find the setting you’ve been looking for? Yes, that is possible approach and sometimes the quickest if you know in which area the setting is most likely stored. Another approach is to download the Group Policy Settings Reference for Windows and Windows Server spreadsheet and search through the Excel sheet.

Now here’s another nice solution that allows you to search for Group Policy settings without opening the GPMC or an Excel sheet. All you need is Windows 7 and Internet Access.

Open Internet Explorer and go to http://gps.cloudapp.net/ (Group Policy Search)

In the Settings Menu select “Add Search Connector”.

Download the Search Connector configuration file.

Select “Add” to install the Search Connector. 

Select Group Policy Search and type a word within the search bar.

Happy GPO Setting searching!

Alan Burchill author of the Group Policy Center blog has posted 2 great articles on Best Practices for Active Directory Structures.

Best Practice:Active Directory Structure Guidelines – Part 1

Best Practice: Group Policy Design Guidelines – Part 2

Today I’ve received a signed copy of Jeremy Moskowitz latest Book “Group Policy – Fundamentals, Security and the Managed Desktop”, so instead of using my laptop I guess I’ll be holding a real book in my hands this weekend.

Jeremy also published 3 FREE chapters:

Bonus Chapter 1 - Scripting Group Policy Operations with Windows PowerShell (co-written with PowerShell MVP Jeff Hicks.)
Bonus Chapter 2 - Advanced Group Policy Management (AGPMv4)
Bonus Chapter 3 - Full Lockdown with Windows SteadyState

………. order this book, it’s worth the money, I have the previous published GPO books and they have been extremely useful so far.

Microsoft published the Office 2010 Administrative Template files (ADM, ADMX/ADML) and Office Customization Tool. Get it from here

Reading my e-mails near the end of my vacation I received a link to this great web based GPO Search Tool. The tool is quite self explaining, so if you’re dealing with Group Policies have a look here

This is an excellent article written by Darren Mar-Elia author of gpoguy.com and founder of sdmsoftware. The article provides guidance for optimizing Group Policy Performance. Read the entire article here

If you are preparing for a Windows 7 deployment and use GPO based startup and logon scripts you should be aware of the default processing behavior in Windows 7. Read the details here

Source: Ask the Directory Services Team blog

Being generally interested in Group Policy Management I was more than happy to stumble upon this blog today called the Group Policy Center – A very nice blog with News, Tutorials, Tips and Tricks about Microsoft Windows Group Policy.

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.

 Related Content
Screencast: How-To Configure the Central ADMX Store
How to create a Central Store for Group Policy Administrative Templates in Window Vista
Group Policy Settings References for Windows and Windows Server

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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.

Learn more about PolicyPak and watch the video tutorials.

Other resources

Group Policy Preferences Overview

Microsoft Group Policy site

TechNet Magazine – Expanded Control with Group Policy Preferences

Group Policy Settings Reference for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista SP1

Here’s another video from GPanswers explaining how to restrict the use of certain devices within your managed environment.

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.

Additional resources are the Microsoft KB article “How to create a Central Store for Group Policy Administrative Templates in Window Vista” or the podcast “TechNet Radio: Group Policy: Windows Vista, Longhorn Server, ADMX and the Central Store”.

Jeremy Moskowitz from GPanswers.com has posted 2 free GPUniversity videos. 

Default Group Policy Objects

Group Policy Backup and Restore

Interested in more ? Check out the Group Policy Online University.

In January 2009 Jeremy Moskovitz launched the Online University for Group Policy Management. I wrote about that earlier in my blog post “Online Group Policy University”.

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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Enjoy

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