Book Image

Mastering Windows Group Policy

By : Jordan Krause
5 (1)
Book Image

Mastering Windows Group Policy

5 (1)
By: Jordan Krause

Overview of this book

This book begins with a discussion of the core material any administrator needs to know in order to start working with Group Policy. Moving on, we will also walk through the process of building a lab environment to start testing Group Policy today. Next we will explore the Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) and start using the powerful features available for us within that interface. Once you are well versed with using GPMC, you will learn to perform and manage the traditional core tasks inside Group Policy. Included in the book are many examples and walk-throughs of the different filtering options available for the application of Group Policy settings, as this is the real power that Group Policy holds within your network. You will also learn how you can use Group Policy to secure your Active Directory environment, and also understand how Group Policy preferences are different than policies, with the help of real-world examples. Finally we will spend some time on maintenance and troubleshooting common Group Policy-related issues so that you, as a directory administrator, will understand the diagnosing process for policy settings. By the end of the book, you will be able to jump right in and use Group Policy to its full potential.
Table of Contents (12 chapters)

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Group Policy - The Basics, gets us comfortable with the different types of Group Policy and creates an understanding as to how it works. We will also use this time to build a test lab that will be used throughout the book.

Chapter 2, Group Policy Management Console (GPMC), explores the primary interface for interacting with Group Policy and all of its associated settings.

Chapter 3, Daily Tasks in Group Policy, tackles many of the commonplace items that you, as a Group Policy administrator, would need to accomplish on a daily basis.

Chapter 4, Advanced Filtering of Group Policy Objects, dives deeper into GPMC to explain the different ways that Group Policy settings can be filtered so that they only apply to users, workstations, or servers of your choosing.

Chapter 5, Deploying Policy Settings, takes us into the Group Policy Editor, where we begin crafting GPOs into usable objects inside our domain. Here, we learn how to start making real changes to our workstations by deploying policy packages to them.

Chapter 6, Group Policy Preferences, showcases the differences between policies and preferences, and spends time working with the settings available on the preferences side of the house.

Chapter 7, Group Policy as a Security Mechanism, portrays numerous ways that Group Policy can be used to enhance your overall security strategy. Security is possibly the greatest benefit of all the services offered by Group Policy.

Chapter 8, Group Policy Maintenance, gets into the less exciting, but need-to-know tasks associated with maintaining your Group Policy environment and ensuring that it runs well for years to come.

Chapter 9, Group Policy Troubleshooting, helps guide the troubleshooting process whenever diagnosing an issue inside Group Policy. Most troubleshooting involves hunting down improper links or filters, but there is also potential for some under-the-hood issues.

Chapter 10, PowerShell for Group Policy Administration, takes what we know about Group Policy and shows us how to accomplish it via PowerShell. This helps to automate tasks, and allows interaction with Group Policy strictly from a command-line interface.