by Darren Mar-Elia | Sep 16, 2026 | General Stuff, Group Policy Management, Group Policy Preferences
Once you understand Group Policy storage and structure, the next step is to learn the distinction between Group Policy and Group Policy Preferences (GPP). At a high level, both mechanisms deliver configuration to Windows, but they operate very differently because of...
by Darren Mar-Elia | May 19, 2014 | Group Policy Preferences
For those of you following this issue, which I blogged about previously, you’ll know that several areas within Group Policy Preferences allowed for defining of passwords that were stored with the GPO settings storage in SYSVOL. These passwords were stored using...
by Darren Mar-Elia | Feb 21, 2014 | Group Policy Preferences, IE Policy, Windows 8, Windows 8.1
An astute reader of this blog brought an interesting scenario to my attention, and I spent some time confirming it. For those of you running Windows 8 (or 8.1) there’s a neat “feature” that allows your users to circumvent controls you put in place...
by Darren Mar-Elia | Nov 12, 2013 | Group Policy Preferences, IE Policy
[animate animation=”fadeIn” delay=”0″ duration=”2s” iterations=”1″]Get The Most Complete Group Policy Change Auditing Solution![/animate] With IE 11 now generally available for Windows 7 and newer versions, the obvious...
by Darren Mar-Elia | Mar 5, 2013 | Group Policy Preferences, Tips & Tricks
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...
by Darren Mar-Elia | Dec 18, 2012 | Group Policy Performance, Group Policy Preferences, Group Policy Reporting, Tips & Tricks
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...
