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Microsoft Group Policy Diagnostic Best Practice Analyzer (GPDBPA) tool

Aug 29

G JohanssonGPO, Uncategorized Best Practice Analyzer, GPO, Microsoft No Comments

Two days ago Microsoft released a new tool “Microsoft Group Policy Diagnostic Best Practice Analyzer (GPDBPA)”

This tool is used for collecting data about your Group Policy configuration environment, or as stated in the KB:

• To search for common configuration errors
• To discover and to diagnose problems
• To collect data for archiving

I will give the tool a closer look tomorrow and run against some test machines to see what it gives me back but in the meantime here is the links and the KB for this new tool.
Note: I’m not sure if it’s ment to be or not but the tool is only available in english and wont run on any other computer with a different language.

Windows Server 2003 x86 edition
Windows Server 2003 x64 edition
Windows XP x86 edition
Windows XP x64 edition

KB 940122

Import/Export WMI filters

Aug 23

G JohanssonGPMC GPMC, MOF, WMI No Comments

Using GPMC to import/Export WMI filters is easy to do if you have only a couple of them (export them to .MOF files). But if you have several of them and you might want to transfer them to another domain you might not want to do it file by file.

In the Group Policy Team Blog they have written more or less an instruction on how to do this so I just wanted to post the link to it so you can read it too.

Customs Check– Importing and Exporting WMI Filters

Wireless Network Policy

Aug 22

G JohanssonActive Directory, GPO, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, Windows XP Active Directory, GPO, Vista, Windows, Windows 2003, Windows 2008, Windows XP, Wireless Network No Comments

Depending on which system you use you have some different options if you want to configure wireless policys using Group Policy.

Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008: These has it as default that you can configure wireless policys using GPO so nothing needs to be done.

Windows 2003: Depending on which level of servicepack you have installed you might need to install “Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) support for Wireless Network (IEEE 802.11) Policies is available for Windows Server 2003″. Note that this will not let you configure WPA2 wireless policys. You will need Windows Vista och Windows Server 2008 for that.

Windows XP: First requirement is that you need to have Windows Server 2003 AD Schema in your AD. Second requirement is that you need atleast SP1 for XP.
From you Windows 2003 server (located at C:\Windows\System32) copy the files wlsnp.dll, wlstore.dll and ws03res.dll. Then register wlsnp.dll using “regsvr32 wlsnp.dll”.
Now this has registrered a new snap-in for Wireless Network Policy.
Side-note: For Windows XP to be able to process WPA2 policys you will need to install “Update for Windows XP (KB917021)”

Windows 2000: Sorry, no can do…

Comments in GPMC

Aug 20

G JohanssonGPMC, GPO, Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista GPMC, GPO, Vista, Windows 2008 No Comments

Introduced in the new GPMC for Windows Vista/Windows 2008 is adding comments of your own to settings you make in a GPO.

Whenever you do any setting in a GPO you can add on a Comment in the new Comment page writing whatever you like. This is stored in the GPO so you will always have it for reference for further use later or any other purpose you might have.

These comments you write will of course print out on your reports created from GPMC, which I think is a very nice feature added.

Comments are stored at \\ad.domain.com\SYSVOL\ad.domain.com\policies\{GUID}\[MACHINE]/[USER]\comment.cmtx which is of course an XML file containing all your comments of settings in the GPO.

Using comments for your settings might make your life easier but remember that they wont show up if you are still using XP!

StarterGPOs – New feature in GPMC

Aug 20

G JohanssonGPMC, GPO, Windows Server 2008 GPMC, GPO, StarterGPO, Windows 2008 No Comments

In Windows 2008 they have introduced Starter GPO’s. This is some sort of template with which you can create real GPO’s with this as base for further editing and also with these templates it will be easier to have templates in a larger environment where you have several persons creating GPO’s, for example at department level.

.

As you can see in printscreen StarterGPOs have their own location in GPMC where you create your starters like any other GPO. Just right click and select New, Select a name and maybe a comment about this Starter and of you go.
When you open the Editor you will see that you only have Administrative Templates which is the only thing you can configure in these Starters. Software Settings and Windows Settings are excluded.
 

StarterGPO’s isn’t located in the same place as normal GPO’s.
A normal GPO would be in \\ad.domain.com\SYSVOL\ad.domain.com\Policies\ but a StarterGPO is located in \\ad.domain.com\SYSVOL\ad.domain.com\StarterGPOs but it’s still defined with a GUID

If you open one of these folders you wont find any GPT.ini file as normal when you have a GPO, instead you will find a StarterGPO.tmplx which is some sort of XML-file defining the Starter.

Where do I find GPMC in Windows 2008

Aug 20

G JohanssonActive Directory, GPMC, Windows Server 2008 DC, GPMC, Windows 2008 No Comments

When you install Windows 2008 and promote it to a Domain Controller, GPMC isn’t in your Administrative Tools.

In Windows 2008 everything is divided into Roles and Features. Roles are major “changes” to a server, for example Domain Controller, Terminal Server etc. Features is more or less “Add/Remove Windows components” which we have had in the past but of course with some more things.

One of these “more things” is the GPMC which you need to add manually using the Server Manager: Add Features.

After GPMC has been installed you can find it as normal in the Administrative Tools.

GPMC Scripts

Aug 20

G JohanssonGPMC, GPO GPMC, Script 1 Comment

Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) has some example scripts which get installed when you install GPMC. These scripts are not always used so I wrote a page about the scripts which you might find useful.

http://gpfaq.se/?page_id=15

Office 2007 ADM-template problems

Aug 18

G JohanssonADM, GPO, Office, Office 2007 ADM, GPO, Microsoft, Office 2007, Outlook No Comments

As you could see in my last post I found a problem with the Common Feed List so I wondered how many more issues there were which I haven’t discoved yet so I did a search and these I found as KB-articles.

Cached Exchange Mode is enabled in Outlook 2007 even though you set the “Do not use Cached Exchange Mode for all new Outlook profiles” setting in the Office Customization Tool

The Junk Mail Import List setting in the Office Customization Tool is not set correctly in the Group Policy templates

The “Synchronize Outlook RSS Feeds with Common Feed List” setting in the Office Customization Tool is not set correctly in the Group Policy templates

The “Automatically download enclosures” setting for RSS feeds in the Office Customization Tool is not set correctly in the Group Policy templates

The “Prevent users from adding PSTs to Outlook profiles and/or prevent using Sharing-Exclusive PSTs” setting is configured incorrectly in the Office Customization Tool and in the Group Policy templates

The”Disables the shortcut key” setting is configured incorrectly in the Office Customization Tool and in the Group Policy templates

The “Junk e-mail protection level” setting in the Office Customization Tool is not set correctly in the Group Policy templates

The free/busy grid displays only your working hours when you create a new meeting request in Outlook 2007

The “Make Outlook the default program for E-mail, Contacts, and Calendar” setting is disabled in Outlook 2007

Since some of these settings are commonly used I figured that it could be worth posting them here!

Synchronize Outlook RSS Feeds with Common Feed List

Aug 17

G JohanssonADM, GPO, Office, Office 2007 ADM, GPO, Microsoft, Office 2007, Outlook, rss 3 Comments

I do almost all of my settings for Windows using GPO whenever possible and Office is no difference so when configuring Office 2007 I got a problem with my RSS-feeds.

My list of RSS-feeds in IE differed from the list I had in Outlook which surprised me since I know I choose so use the Common Feed List.

I check in Outlook and found out that the checkbox (Sync RSS feeds to the Common Feed List) was greyed out and unticked even if I know I selected the right choice when configuring my GPO.

So I started searching on the Internet and found one hit, which is http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932126. Apparently MS has made a mistake in the outlk12.adm file (and also in the outlk12.opa file for OCT) so when you select enable for switching this function on, what really happens is that you turn it off.

The adm-files for Office 2007 you can download here but note that the above has not been corrected so you need to change this first thing (or keep it in mind ).

ADMX Migrator – Issues

Aug 02

G JohanssonADMX, GPO ADMX, GPO No Comments

As you could see in my old post about the ADMX migrator it will convert your existing adm-files to the new format but there are some open issues with this Migrator which can crasch GPEdit when you try to open them after convert has been done.

Read about this (Note #1) from Jeremy’s GP Blog as he has reported some of these problems to Full Armor/MS and reports that the new version will come in beginning of October.