With yet another release of Windows (seems like it was only last year… errr… wait), Microsoft has also released a new version of the remote server admin tools (a.k.a. RSAT). RSAT allow you to install the tools needed to manage your servers from a Windows 8.1 computer. You might not think you need the RSAT installed as you are just…

If you downloaded and installed Windows Server 2012 last week and your are also running the Windows 8 RTM you may have realised that the Remote Server Administrator Tools for Windows 8 RTM were not released yet. The RSAT tools are of course the all the admin tools you require to manage you Windows Server 2012 features remotely therefore having…

Microsoft has just released / announced the availability of the “Release Preview” (a.k.a Release Candidate) of Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012. But they have also released the “Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 8 Release Preview” which allows you to install all essential admin tools needed to manage Group Policy in your environment. I am still downloading and install…

If you edit Group Policy on you local computer you will be glad to hear that Microsoft has just released the Remove Server Admin Tools update for Windows 7 Service Pack 1 which has an updated version of GPMC. This resolves the "The update does not apply to your system” error message if you had re-installed Windows 7 and loaded…

Even though Group Policy Preference have been out for a number of years (since Windows Server 2008) it is still a relatively unknown feature of group policy. Therefore this is the first of a few articles I am going to be writing about some of the basic features of Group Policy Preferences. So to start off with I am going…

In my previous article In this article Best Practice:Active Directory Structure Guidelines – Part 1 I spoke about some of the guidelines I personally use when developing an Active Directory OU structure. In this next part I will discuss some guidelines I use when designing a Group Policy Object infrastructure. Ideally you should make the the Active Directory OU and…

Sorry that this weeks setting of the week was a little late however as you can see I have been a little busy. This weeks setting is called “Remote Properties from the Computer icon context menu” and can be found under User Configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > Desktop. This setting might seem a little mundane compared some other…

One of the common task that Group Policy administrators need to do is download and install the Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) on their computer to allow them to make changes to Group Policy. This tool is by default not installed on Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows 7. Below I first go through the Windows 7 and then the…