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One of the cool features within Group Policy Preferences, is the ability to use environment variables instead of static values, within any number of policy areas. For example, you can use the Files GP Preferences area to copy files from one location to another. In that policy, you specify a source and destination for the file you want to copy. In either case–source or destination–you can GP…

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In my previous blog post, I wrote about some new reporting we’ll be providing in version 2.0 of our GPO Exporter product. One of the reports in that new version identifies GPOs that contain “expensive” Group Policy Preferences Item-Level Targeting (ILT). What do I mean by “expensive”? Specifically, this refers to ILTs that can result in longer than normal GPO processing times as they’re being…

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A recent thread on the GPOGUY.COM GPTalk Mailing list prompted me to write about managing IE settings using Group Policy. In an article I wrote for Windows IT Pro Magazine in 2011, I talked about the various technologies in Group Policy that you can use to manage IE configuration. It’s definitely a mixed bag, with no less than 3 different policy areas that can be used, depending upon the setting…

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Microsoft recently announced a new security vulnerability in Windows shortcuts that affects all versions of Windows since XP! Its references here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2286198. This particular vulnerability takes advantage of the icon that appears in shortcut (.lnk and .pif) files on Windows. Within the article cited above, Microsoft provides a “FixIt” workaround for the problem that…

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For those of you waiting patiently to migrate your PolicyMaker settings to the new GP Preferences format, your wait is over! You can now download the migration tool here! And here’s a good blog post on how it all works. DarrenTags:Group Policy, Group Policy Preferences,…

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In a recent posting on the Activedir.org mailing list, I happened to mention that we’re getting ready to release v. 2.0 of our GPExpert(r) Scripting Toolkit. The Toolkit is actually getting a new name, but I won’t spoil the surprise for now. However, the key feature we’ve added to it is support for the new Group Policy Preferences (GPP) settings! This is pretty exciting because this now…

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So, the other day I was trading some email with a friend and mentioned that I was working on a nifty little utility to allow someone to import the contents of a .reg file into Group Policy Preferences registry extensions using the command-line. He commented that it sounded interesting but that the GP Preferences UI already supported something like this. So I thought I’d play around with it and…

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I’ve seen a lot of interest in Group Policy Preferences since its release, and a lot of confusion about whether you can use it if you don’t have Windows Server 2008 in your environment (you can!) so I thought it would be useful to create a quick whitepaper on the basic requirements for this feature, and what things it can do. Check it out at the GPOGUY.COM Whitepaper page.Enjoy! Tags:Grou…

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I frequently find that a lot of folks have not yet discovered all of the cool new Group Policy management features that Group Policy Preferences brings to Windows. As a result, I thought it would be worthwhile to do a couple of blog items about some of these features. Today, I’ll talk about Power Management. When Vista shipped, Microsoft provided a way of controlling Vista Power options using…

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I have heard a lot of questions about the need to install the pre-requisite XMLLite package on XP and Server 2003 prior to installing the Group Policy Preferences Client Side Extensions to those versions of Windows. The fact is that XMLLite is currently not deployable via WSUS, which has made it hard for folks to mass deploy Group Policy Preferences. What I’ve come to learn is that w…

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