Group Policy Blog by Darren Mar-Elia (The “GPOGUY”)
Override the Group Policy ADMX Central Store
Ever since Microsoft introduced the Central Store -- a folder in SYSVOL where you can centrally keep all of your ADMX and ADML template files for Group Policy management -- you've had to make all or nothing decisions about which ADMX files you could use for GP editing...
Locating Those Nasty Passwords in Group Policy Preferences Using PowerShell
If you haven't already seen it, it's now been widely documented that the feature within GP Preferences Group Policy that allows you to store passwords within a GPO for a variety of uses, is essentially not secure. If you haven't read one of these posts, please do and...
Understanding Group Policy Change Auditing
There's no doubt that the built-in security auditing in Windows is thorough--sometimes too thorough, as anyone who has tried to manage auditing logs in large AD environments knows. But when it comes to auditing Group Policy changes, the native auditing can be lacking....
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...