Group Policy, Profiles, and IntelliMirror for Windows2003, WindowsXP, and Windows 2000 (Mark Minasi Windows Administrator Library)

Overview

In this chapter, you'll get your feet wet with the concept that is Group Policy. You'll start to understand conceptually what Group Policy is and how it's created, applied, and modified, and you'll go through some practical examples to get at the basics.

The best news is that the essentials of Group Policy are the same in Windows 2000, Windows 2003, and Windows XP. If your Active Directory is a mixture of Windows 2000 or Windows 2000 and Windows 2003, the essentials are all the same. Indeed, if you have a mature Active Directory and think you have a handle on Group Policy essentials, I still encourage you to read and work through the examples in this chapter. With the changes in store, I'm sure you'll find some goodies waiting for you.

If you've done any work at all with Group Policy and Active Directory, you're likely familiar with the "usual" Group Policy interface, which is "in the box." The best news of all, though, is that there's a (free) tool in town, called the GPMC, or Group Policy Management Console. Its goal is to give us an updated, refreshing way to view and manage Group Policy; indeed, this tool enables us to view and manage Group Policy the way it was meant to be viewed and managed. The new GPMC interface provides a one-stop shop for managing nearly all aspects of Group Policy in your Active Directory.

To use the new GPMC tool, it doesn't matter if your entire Active Directory (or individual domains) are Windows 2000 or Windows 2003it just matters that you have Active Directory.

And did I mention it's free?

Stay tuned , dear reader. We'll get to that exciting new and free stuff right away in this first chapter. I don't want to keep you in suspense for too long.