by Darren Mar-Elia | Jul 20, 2026 | Event Logs, General Stuff, Group Policy, Group Policy Management, Security Policy
Years ago, if you wanted to configure Windows Event Logs for things like maximum log size or retention behavior, you typically did that in Security Settings. Starting with Windows 8, Microsoft added a new Administrative Template that added new Administrative Template...
by Darren Mar-Elia | Mar 5, 2026 | Group Policy, Group Policy Blog, Group Policy Management, Tips & Tricks
If you’ve worked with Group Policy for any length of time, you’ve probably heard the term ‘registry tattooing’. The concept dates back to NT 4.0 System Policies, for those Windows veterans who remember it. Tattooing occurred when a registry-based policy...
by Darren Mar-Elia | Jan 15, 2026 | Group Policy, Group Policy Management, Group Policy Tools
Anyone who manages Group Policy (GP) knows about the gpupdate.exe utility that ships with Windows. GPUpdate’s job is to refresh Group Policy manually, rather than relying on Windows to do it on its own schedule. Specifically, it can be used to force the system to ask...
by Darren Mar-Elia | Aug 8, 2016 | GP Troubleshooting, Group Policy, Group Policy Blog, Group Policy Reporting, PowerShell, sdm software
One of the many scenarios that organizations contend with is impact analysis. For SDM Software this is about configuration and most importantly security configuration. For example, what happens if you go into Active Directory Users and Computers and move Server1 from...
by Darren Mar-Elia | Dec 8, 2015 | Desired State Configuration, GP Troubleshooting, Group Policy, Group Policy Blog, Group Policy Management, Group Policy Tools, PowerShell, registry policy
Group Policy has been a bit of a comfort for many of us for the past 15 years. It is a technology that is full of promise and capability. It is sufficiently complex, and incredibly powerful. As PowerShell has evolved to embrace configuration with Desired State...
