Local Group Policy in Workgroup Environments
Many posts on this blog talk about various Group Policy settings and how to implement them. Although, Group Policy main focus is to lock down settings on workstations and servers in a domain environment, you can still implement the same measures on workstations in a workgroup environment.
Categories: Management Tags: LGPO, Local Group Policy
Benefits of Data Tiering
Data tiering or tiered storage strategies help organizations reduce the total storage costs. Costs can be reduced by separating data based on necessity and functionality. For instance, hot data that is frequently accessed by the organizations’ critical applications needs to be stored on fast storage devices while, data that is occasionally accessed can reside on slower and cheaper storage devices.
Categories: Management Tags: data, SAN, storage, tiering
Best Practices for Group Policy Preferences
This running list categorizes best practices for Group Policy Preferences.
Group Policy Files:
- Normally, an update will create a file if it doesn’t exist and replace it if it does exist. In Files, this is not the case. An Update simply updates the file attributes (not the file itself). If you wish to create the file if it doesn’t exist and to replace it if it does exist, choose the replace option.
- To copy all of the files in a single folder, ensure that your source ends with a \* and that your destination ends with a \
Group Policy Printers:
- Delete: To prevent computers from generating Event Log errors, set preference to Apply Once and Do Not Reapply. Also configure a Item Level Target to the printer’s location in the registry. This can either be HKLM or HKCU.
Categories: Management Tags: Best Practices, Group Policies, Preferences
Playing with Processing: Group Policy Guide for Link Manipulation
Order of Processing
LSDOU: Local, Site, Organizational Unit (OU). That is the order in which Group Policy applies. All local GPOs are applied first; this is followed by any applicable ones linked to a site. Next, GPOs linked at the domain are applied. Finally, GPOs linked to each OU are processed. These GPOs are applied in a top down approach. Higher OUs or levels such as a site or domain are applied first. Let’s look at a sample environment.
Categories: Management, Troubleshooting Tags: Block Inheritance, domain, Enforced, GPO, Group Policy, Inheritance, link, LSDOU, OU
Disabling UAC’s Sound Prompt on Windows 8
I am one of those geeky people who try to follow all of Microsoft’s recommendations (including logging in with an administrator and separate standard account). When UAC was introduced, I found my new best friend! I could finally stay logged in as an administrator without having everything running as an administrator.
Categories: Management, Windows 8 Tags: sound, UAC, UAC prompt
Who’s on First?
So Abbott and Costello were in the office one day. After a long series of emails, they noticed their inbox was completely cluttered!
Categories: Management Tags: Abbott, email, inbox, Outlook
10 Ways to Troubleshoot Group Policy
Group Policy is a solid tool and is very stable. Microsoft has made constant improvements to it since Windows 2000. It allows for the configuration and deployment of pretty much anything in your Active Directory environment. From deploying software to setting the default printer, it works. But when it doesn’t, Microsoft has provided great guidelines and tools in order to troubleshoot.
Categories: Management, Security Tags: Active Directory, AD, filter, GPO, Group Policy, OU, WMI
