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)

Implementing ADMX/ADML files

You already know a little bit about ADMX and ADML files that they are used when new settings need to make their way into the Administrative Templates section of the Group Policy Editor. Now, we need to figure out how to actually use them in our environment.

There are a few different reasons that you may need to work with ADMX files to modify your templates. One is when making Group-Policy-management platform changes. Each new Windows operating system that releases comes with some new settings and functionality inside of Group Policy. For example, the GPMC inside Server 2016 has more capabilities than a GPMC running on Server 2012 R2. If you would rather continue using your Server 2012R2 for GPMC management duties, rather than spinning up a Server 2016 (or Windows 10 client) for this purpose, you could grab the ADMX files from a Server 2016...