Group Policy Blog by Darren Mar-Elia (The “GPOGUY”)
Removing Extra Registry Settings from GPOs
I recently had someone ask if there was a way to get rid of those pesky "Extra Registry Settings" that sometimes appear in a GPO settings report in GPMC. You know, the ones that look like this: These settings arise within the...
GPO Migrator 1.6 is Here–Make Quick Work of GPO Migrations and Reorganizations!
We're happy to announce the general availability of GPO Migrator 1.6. GPO Migrator is SDM Software's product for allowing "drag and drop" migration and reorganization of settings across GPOs. Whether you're doing a domain clean-up or a migration or consolidation into...
A New, Old Threat: Dealing with AD and Group Policy Information Exposure
Delegation--A Blessing or a Curse? I've been wanting to sit down and write this blog post about AD information exposure for a couple of weeks now, and am finally finding the time to do so. For those of you who follow my blog, you know that I posted nearly a year ago...
Sick of WannaCry? Don’t Read This…
I saw a humorous tweet today that said something to the effect that the number of blog posts about the recent "WannaCry" ransomware attack have now exceeded the number of infected machines. I am loathe to add truth to that saying, but I, of course, have something to...
ADMX Files for Windows 10 Build 1703 “Creators Update” Now Available
Now that the Windows 10 "Creators Update" is available, Microsoft has made the ADMX files for this new Windows 10 release available for download. As I mentioned in my last blog post, you can no longer guarantee that new ADMX files are backward compatible with the...
Managing ADMX Files in a Windows 10 World
Microsoft has recently put out several articles explaining some of the nuances of ADMX files in the new world of Windows-as-a-Service--where new Windows builds come out frequently and often ship with new versions of ADMX templates. I've blogged previously about the...
SDM Software and Semperis Partner to Provide World-Class AD & Group Policy Solutions
Hey Folks- Today I'm happy to announce that we're partnering with Semperis--a leader in providing Active Directory recovery solutions--to help bring customers more complete solutions around AD & GP management. I'm particularly excited about this partnership...
Group Policy as Malware Delivery System
While the title to this post may sound a bit scary or ominous, the subject of this post is definitely real. A fellow IT guy whom I've known for many years, alerted me to a situation he came across in an IT shop he was helping. Namely, the customer's computers got...
Making Sense of Group Policy SYSVOL Mismatch Errors
When I was working on the update for our Group Policy Health Reporter freeware tool recently, I noticed a very annoying "feature" that Microsoft seemed to introduce into Group Policy on Windows 7 and 2008-R2 systems. I'm pretty sure it started when they released...
Answering the Boss’s Question–“Can You Prove to Me That Critical Security Setting is on Every Machine?”
With RSA Conference going on this week here in San Francisco, I thought it was timely to talk about Group Policy's role in securing your Windows environment. Many of you are undoubtedly using Group Policy to deliver security settings, based on industry-standard...