Group Policy Preferences

[cookie_monster]

Well 'PolicyMaker Registry Extension' is now called Group Policy Preferences in server 2008 but MS have pulled the 2003 server download now and it looks like it's only going to be part of server 2008. This product was a free download from Desktop Standard untill last year when MS bought it, most annoying as i've used it on 2003 server and it's really a very good product.

http://blog.stealthpuppy.com/group-p...-adm-templates


Update: i think there's a hint on this page that you might be able to use in in a 2003 environment, bet you'll still need a 2008 server or something ;-)

http://www.desktopstandard.com/

[azrael78]

So let me get this straight, for the preferences stuff, we either have to go 2008 Server and use the Windows XP/2003 CSE's OR we have to find a copy of PolicyMaker that we can still register/buy.

Was hoping to use this in our 2003 environment without having to go to 2008 just yet but the features it offers are rather nice

[Gatt]

Are the XP/2003 CSE's available yet?

[cookie_monster]

I've not found them anywhere yet.

[azrael78]

They are indeed available.

Windows XP: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...DisplayLang=en

Server 2003: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...DisplayLang=en

Vista: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...DisplayLang=en

[cookie_monster]

Marvellous


Hang on a min are they saying you can only manage this from Vista?


I'll have a read

http://www.windowsecurity.com/articl...008-Part3.html

As i suspected here comes the big 'you need to run Vista' push, i remember the same pain when admining a 2K network and all the new tools required XP. I do have a Vista box running but it does irk me a bit that they force you into it.

Well, it actually doesn’t have to be expensive, you won’t have to install Windows Server 2008 on all your Domain Controllers or anything like that – all you need to do is to have a single Windows Vista SP1 with the upcoming, and freely downloadable, “Remote Server Administration Tools” (RSAT) toolkit installed

[mortstar]

I'm just looking at this since it came down the WSUS pipe.

Looks like a pretty funky feature. From posts above can I take it that; the 'Group Policy Preferences' will be extendible to XP Clients through Server 2003 DCs, as long as I have Vista SP1 PC (Virtual Machine?) to run the remote administration kit (an updated version of GPMC?) - which has yet to be released.

[Geoff]

What about a 2k8 server, will that work as your 'admin termnial' too?

[cookie_monster]

I haven't tried a 2008 server yet but i can't see why you couldn't as the tools should install on it.

If the features are the same or improved from the Desktop Standard product then it should be very good.

[azrael78]

You can happily use 2K8 as your admin server until the RSAT comes out for Vista.

That's what I've been doing in our trial lab - Server 2008 is nice, just wish I had more time to play and less time to actually work.