As you know along with Windows 8 Consumer Preview and Windows Server 8 Beta has been released and of course I have taken a look at the list of new Group Policy setting that apply to Windows 8. From the list of new Windows 8 Consumer Previews settings I have selected some policy setting that talk about features that look…

If you have a lot of GPO’s in your environment then you know that the process of comparing GPO’s can be enormously time-consuming and difficult. Well fellow Group Policy MVP Darren Mar-Elia (a.k.a. GPOGUY) and CTO & Founder of SDM Software has just released a new version of the GPO Compare tool. This is a super cool tool allows you…

If you have ever had anything to do with Outlook in your organisation you will no doubt have some experience (pain) with the use of PST files. PST files are of course the main way users can store their email information on their local hard drive or network share (Network stored PST files don’t do it) thus avoiding the email…

Today I experienced Serendipity with the error “Unable to find a default server with Active Directory Web Services running.” in PowerShell with Windows 7. This message was occurring when trying to create some new OU’s using the New-ADOrganizationalUnit command. Initially I thought it was due to not having the required Active Directory Powershell commands installed but then I realised that…

Jeffery Hicks (PowerShell MVP) has just recently written a power shell command call Get-GPOBackup to address and issues with managing GPO backups. The GroupPolicy module from Microsoft offers a great deal of functionality from a command line. In terms of regular maintenance or administration it is pretty hard to beat, especially if you have 100s or 1000s of GPOs. When…

I just read an article that showed you how to set this really cool registry key that allows you to change how the drive letter is displayed in Windows Explorer. As this hack is only a registry key I thought I would do a quick how to deploy this this feature using Group Policy Preferences Registry Extension. Below is an…

I am SUPER excited to be able to offer a 20% discount off all books at both the Microsoft Press Shop Australia and at Woodslane Computer Book Centre online book stores. To take advantage of this offer simply use the code GROUPPOLICYBIZ to get 20% off the total cost of you basket when you checkout. (Until 30 June 2011) What…

This is a simple tip that I want to share about the right way to Organisation Units  to ensure that you always have them protected from accidental deletion. Ever since Windows Server 2008/Vista there has been an option in ADUC called “Protect container from accidental deletion” (see image below).   The affect of ticking this check box was that the…