Group Policy Blog by Darren Mar-Elia (The “GPOGUY”)
Group Policy Compliance Manager 1.5 – Getting Started
Getting Started It is great to have this update to Group Policy Compliance Manager. Some great features to provide for management at scale, some nice refinements and fixes. Overall the system is running great and the ability to get up and running is quick and...
Fun with the Group Policy Automation Engine and Out-GridView
Fans of PowerShell We are all fans right? We have been for a while. PowerShell is one of those things that the more you learn, the more you explore, the more you play, the more you appreciate what it has to offer. Some very simple things can prove to be very exciting....
Updates to Group Policy Automation Engine and Group Policy Compliance Manager!
As the year draws to a close, we are busy here at SDM Software putting the wraps on updates to existing products. Today I wanted to announce two product updates that are getting ready to ship: Group Policy Automation Engine 4.1: This update to our venerable...
GPO Migrator makes Group Policy Migration a Snap!
This is a follow-up to our previous post from just before the Ignite conference. We are happy to announce that GPO Migrator is now generally available! As I mentioned in the previous post, GPO Migrator finally provides a "drag and drop" way of migrating individual GPO...
Just In Time for Microsoft Ignite–A Sneak Peek of GPO Migrator 1.0!
Well, Microsoft Ignite is happening next week, and SDM Software will be there in force, occupying Booth #671 on the show floor. And no conference would be complete without showing off new toys. In our case, the new toy is a shiny new product called GPO Migrator. We'll...
Dealing With The AccountExpires Date in Active Directory – With PowerShell
By now most of us are aware that Active Directory dates are not the easiest bits of data to deal with. Wrapping our heads around how AD stores and deals with dates is very interesting on an intellectual level, and equally infuriating on a productivity level. Accessing...
Analyze GPO Impact – Part II – Export-SDMGPSettings
Part II of our GPO Impact Analysis. For the purpose of this post the primary capability of Export-SDMGPSettings is to grab a 'snapshot' of all of the settings managed in a set of GPOs. Export-SDMGPSettings is one of the core cmdlets that make up the PowerShell part of...
Security Fun: Bloodhound, MS16-072 and GPO Discoverability
I had a chance to attend my first BlackHat/Defcon conference last week in Las Vegas. I also attended the very excellent BSides conference, happening concurrently. Besides being shaken to my core from the skills demonstrated during the week :-), I got a chance to see...
Analyze GPO Impact – Part 1
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...
Video – Remove Empty GPOs
As promised I posted a quick video (OK not too quick) to walk through using the PowerShell pieces of GPO Reporting Pak to remove empty GPOs. The previous post describes the process and this video simply provides the walk through. There are so may things that one can...