Group Policy Blog by Darren Mar-Elia (The “GPOGUY”)
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...
GPO Compare 2.8 Ships!
Hi folks. Just wanted to drop a quick posting to let folks know that last week, we shipped a minor update to our popular GPO Compare product--version 2.8! This new version included some big and little things to help make GPO comparisons much easier. To review, GPO...
Group Policy vs. Desired State Configuration vs. …
If you haven't read my most recent post on Desired State Configuration (DSC)--the new feature coming with the Windows Management Framework v4 (i.e. PowerShell v4, which will ship in the box in Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012-R2) then I encourage you to check it...
SDM Software Founder Darren Mar-Elia Giving Group Policy Webinar — July 24th
Next Wednesday, July 24th, SDM Software CTO & Founder Darren Mar-Elia will be giving a webinar entitled, "Achieve Better Group Policy Lifecycle Management with SDM Software", where he'll discuss and demo our new Group Policy Auditing & Attestation product....