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5 Reasons to Consolidate Active Directory Domains and Forests

Last Update: Feb 15, 2024

A Windows Server Active Directory (AD) forest is the topmost logical container in an AD configuration. In this article, Michael Otey explains the role forests play in an AD configuration and why it is necessary to consolidate Active Directory forests and domains to improve security and management. Every Active Directory deployment contains at least one forest, the parent container in…

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Solving Group Policy Problems with the Group Policy Results Wizard

Russell Smith shows us how to determine which Group Policy settings are actually being applied to devices using the Group Policy Results Wizard.

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Working with Group Policy

This article deals with the mechanism of deploying and verifying GPO deployment. It will not deal in the GPO itself and the settings inside it (these settings and configurations will be discussed in different articles). Note that this article was written and contributed to the site by Amir Meron. Group Policy is a one of…

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Windows

What is Group Policy?

Group Policy is an infrastructure feature in Active Directory that allows IT pros to manage their users’ Windows environments and servers. In this article, I will explain in detail what is Group Policy, what is a Group Policy Object (GPO), and how to adjust the policy settings to meet your security needs and compliance requirements….

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Backing Up Group Policy Objects

Backing up your Group Policy Objects allows you to restore group policy settings without having to perform an entire Active Directory restoration. In this article, Brien Posey walk you through the process.

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Windows

Using GPUpdate to Manage Group Policy

Last Update: Apr 28, 2023

With GPUpdate, administrators can update Group Policy settings from a central location and set configuration settings for computers in an Active Directory domain. In this guide, I’ll show you how to use GPUpdate to refresh local and Active Directory–based Group Policy settings. I can’t tell you (accurately) how many times I have typed ‘gpupdate /force‘…

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Establishing Group Policies for Outlook 2007

Many years ago, I used to work in the help desk for a large company. At that time, group policies simply did not exist, and there was no way of locking down Windows or a user’s applications. What I found is that many times the problems that users reported with their systems were directly to…

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Download Group Policy Settings Reference

This spreadsheet lists Group Policy settings described in Administrative Template (.adm) files and Security Settings that shipped with Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1. This includes all Administrative Template policy settings supported on the following operating systems: Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Windows XP Professional with SP2 or earlier service packs, and Microsoft Windows 2000 with…

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Using Group policy to Deploy Outlook 2007

If you decide to use Outlook as the client for your Exchange deployment, than one of the biggest administrative tasks associated with the deployment is going to be deploying Outlook.  Although there are a number of system management utilities that can be used to distribute software, it is possible to deploy Outlook by making some…

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This Week in IT – Windows Group Policy Woes

Last Update: Mar 26, 2022

In this week’s edition of This Week in IT, Microsoft issues updates to fix last week’s update. Microsoft is finally adding the ability to mute notifications during Microsoft Teams meetings, and Windows 10 and Windows 11 Group Policy ADMX templates no longer play nice with each other. This Week in IT – Windows Group Policy…

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