Group Policy Preferences

1. Group Policy Preferences NLIT 2009 Mike Brayton June 2nd, 2009 NREL is a national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy operated by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC

2. Group Policy Preferences • What are Group Policy Preferences? • GPP are a set of client-side extensions that are managed by an updated management console. • These extensions allow the granular control of local users/groups, drive mappings, printer connections, file deployment, and many other settings without using a logon script. • Where did GPP come from? • Microsoft purchased DesktopStandard Corp in 2006, including their Policymaker product. • Policymaker technology was released by MS as Group Policy Preferences with Windows Server 2008 National Renewable Energy Laboratory Innovation for Our Energy Future

3. Group Policy Preferences • How can we use them? • Management Console • Windows Server 2008 • Vista SP1 + RSAT • Client requirements • Client Side Extensions • XMLLite • No Windows 2000 support! • But we don’t have a Windows 2008 domain! National Renewable Energy Laboratory Innovation for Our Energy Future

4. Group Policy Preferences Courtesy of Microsoft TechNet National Renewable Energy Laboratory Innovation for Our Energy Future

5. GP Preference Types User Preferences National Renewable Energy Laboratory Innovation for Our Energy Future

6. GP Preference Types User Preferences Computer Preferences National Renewable Energy Laboratory Innovation for Our Energy Future

7. Extension Example: Files The Files preference extension allows you to create, replace, update, and delete files on domain PCs and servers. File paths accept both wildcards and environment variables. This feature offers great flexibility and can be used to copy configuration files, documents, or any other reasonable sized file. For example, you could copy an updated screen saver file out to all your PCs. Note from MS: Copying shortcuts using the Files preference extension is not recommended because the Shortcuts extension provides a user interface for this purpose and is more flexible. National Renewable Energy Laboratory Innovation for Our Energy Future

8. Extension Example: Local Groups • This extension gives you the ability to configure local user accounts and groups for multiple computers. • Create, update, replace, or delete user accounts from local computers. • Change the password for a local account. • Create, update, replace, or delete groups from the local computer. • Add or remove a logged-on user to or from a local group. • Add or remove specific domain accounts to and from local groups. National Renewable Energy Laboratory Innovation for Our Energy Future

9. Extension Example: Common Options • Stop Processing items in this extension if an error occurs • Run in logged-on user’s security context (user policy option) • Remove this item when it is no longer applied • Apply once and do not reapply • Item-level targeting National Renewable Energy Laboratory Innovation for Our Energy Future

10. Item-level Targeting National Renewable Energy Laboratory Innovation for Our Energy Future

11. Conclusion & Questions… National Renewable Energy Laboratory Innovation for Our Energy Future