Group Policy Blog by Darren Mar-Elia (The “GPOGUY”)
Script Group Policy Changes With The New Version of Group Policy Automation Engine!
Hey PowerShell and Group Policy Fans! If you want to script group policy changes, life just got easier! I'm pleased to announce that today we shipped a major upgrade to our GP Automation Engine product--version 3.0. For those of you who don't know what the GPAE is all...
Warning!!!–Group Policy Logon Scripts Delays in Windows 8.1
Last month, I wrote an article on the Petri.co.il website, reviewing the new features around Group Policy in Windows 8.1. Buried in that list of new stuff was a feature that was perhaps a little unheralded and under-advertised, but one that may cause administrators a...
GP Preferences for Internet Explorer 11
[animate animation="fadeIn" delay="0" duration="2s" iterations="1"]Get The Most Complete Group Policy Change Auditing...
Group Policy Settings Reference Available for Windows 8.1
Hey Folks- Just a quick note to let you know that Microsoft just released their settings spreadsheet for Admin Template settings available in Windows 8.1 and Server 2012-R2. This handy Excel doc lets you search for available Admin Template and security settings for...
Renaming GPOs with PowerShell
Recently, as part of one of our Group Policy consulting engagements, we recommended to a customer to adopt a consistent GPO naming standard. This kind of standard makes the function and purpose of a GPO more clear and eases discovery of a Group Policy environment. As...
More on Group Policy Caching in Windows 8.1
A while back I wrote a post describing the new Group Policy caching feature in Windows 8.1. As I mentioned in the post, this feature was designed to speed up GP processing when "synchronous" foreground policy processing was occurring. Synchronous foreground...
Getting Control of Group Policy with SDM Software and GPO Exporter
Folks- I've been wanting to record a video for a while now, where I talk about some specific examples of how our GPO Exporter product can really help customers get a handle on their Group Policy environments. In this new video I talk about the challenges...
Converting Group Policy Settings to Desired State Configuration Documents
If you've been following my blog, you know I've become a big fan of the new Desired State Configuration feature in Windows Management Framework 4 (i.e. PowerShell 4). It makes configuring Windows Servers a snap and provides a whole new set of configuration...
Consolidating & Cleaning Up Group Policy — Best Practices
A fair bit of what we do here at SDM Software is helping folks get a handle on their Group Policy environments. Using products such as our GPO Reporting Pak, we've had lots of customers clean up and reduce the clutter (not to mention improve desktop performance) of...
Vote for GPO Reporting Pak for Windows IT Pro’s Community Choice Awards!
All- Just a quick note to encourage you to vote for our GPO Reporting Pak-- which combines the GPO Compare and GPO Exporter products--in the category of "Best Active Directory/Group Policy product" for Windows IT Pro Magazine's Community Choice Awards. If you've...