Archive for the 'Group Policy' Category
Using Windows Vista group policy to prevent unauthorised USB device use
Friday, December 21st, 2007One of the largest internal threats to network security, and a major source of worry for network administrators, is the use of USB storage devices. USB storage devices can be used to steal large quantities of data from your network. Anything a user has access to can be copied to a USB storage device. In [...]
Group Policy Extensions in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, Part 3
Thursday, September 20th, 2007If you would like to be notified when Brien Posey releases the next article in this series please sign up to the WindowsNetworking.com Real time article update newsletter. Being that security was Microsoft’s paramount concern when developing Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista, it should come as no surprise that some of the new group [...]
Group Policy Extensions in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, Part 2
Thursday, September 20th, 2007One of the major security weaknesses of previous Windows operating systems has always been the existence of a local administrator account on workstations. While Windows Vista does make use of a local Administrator account, the Accounts: Administrator Account Status policy setting can be used to disable it. By default, the administrator account is enabled, but [...]
Group Policy Extensions in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, Part 1
Thursday, September 20th, 2007Ever since the creation of Windows 2000 Server, the primary mechanism for managing security on a Windows network has been group policies. For several years though, I have felt that group policies needed to be extended because there are many aspects of the Windows operating system that simply cannot be controlled by group policies. Fortunately, [...]
Windows Tip: Troubleshooting group policy in Windows Vista
Tuesday, January 23rd, 2007Group Policy is a key technology for managing computers on Windows-based networks where Active Directory is deployed. But Group Policy has been considerably enhanced in Windows Vista, and also in the soon-to-come Windows Server Code-Name “Longhorn.” And of course, changes mean more learning for those who are going to administer these platforms, so this tip [...]
More Powerful Group Policy in Windows Vista
Friday, January 5th, 2007Windows Vista delivers a substantial update to the Group Policy infrastructure. Yet as organizations around the world deploy Windows Vista, many administrators probably won’t notice much of a difference in how they work because the numerous changes in Group Policy functions all take place under the hood. What administrators will find, however, is that Windows [...]
Managing Windows Vista Group Policy (Part 3)
Friday, December 22nd, 2006If you ever tried troubleshooting Group Policy processing on a Windows 2000, XP or 2003 computer you will probably say that you had some hard times finding the error messages, analyzing events etc. that eventually helped you figure out what was going on. The thing is, that with these operating systems, error messages could be [...]
Managing Windows Vista Group Policy (Part 2)
Friday, December 1st, 2006If you ever tried administering locked down ‘kiosk’ computers in public places like libraries or any other place where you have Windows 2000/XP/2003 computers set up for public use, you probably fought a great deal with local policies yourself, even when logged on as an administrator. The thing is that, before Windows Vista, we had [...]
Managing Windows Vista Group Policy (Part 1)
Sunday, November 12th, 2006Windows Vista includes some important changes from earlier Windows operating systems in regards to Group Policy (GP). This article introduces you to how ADM files evolved into multi-lingual files by the use of XML (ADMX/ADML files) and the Central Store with all its glory.
Welcome to the constantly expanding Microsoft Group Policy universe.
ADM files were first [...]
