Being familiar with the Microsoft Windows operating systems will put you a step ahead when reading this book. We will be interacting with Windows Server 2016 and Windows 10, but Group Policy has been included with the Windows Server operating system for many years. You do not have to be running the latest and greatest operating systems in order to follow along with this book, though you will learn why it is always best to be using the newest versions of Windows when interacting with the Group Policy management tools.

If you have access to a Windows Server 2008 or newer system, you should be able to easily follow along with everything that we are doing in this book. If you've never seen Windows Server before, it is available as a trial download from Microsoft's website. You'll need a place to install this operating system though, which means you will need either a piece of hardware capable of running Windows Server, or access to a virtualized infrastructure, such as Hyper-V or VMware, in order to spin up a new virtual server.

We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots/diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: https://www.packtpub.com/sites/default/files/downloads/9781789347395_ColorImages.pdf.

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

CodeInText: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: "Or you can also type MMC from a command prompt or PowerShell prompt and open it that way as well."

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

Invoke-GPUpdate -Computer LAPTOP2

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see on screen. For example, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in the text like this. Here is an example: "Probably the easiest and quickest way to open a PowerShell window is to right-click on the Start button, which invokes the quick admin menu."