Group Policy Modelling

[Disease]

Anyone know of any software that allows you to create GPO's offline i.e on a XP/Vista machine and then allows you to import it over to a server later?

[altecsole]

Why would you want to? Just create a test OU structure, add a couple of users and computers and do your testing using these accounts. Create new group policies for specific tasks. Once they're working you can then link them to your existing OUs, or incorporate the settings into your existing GPs.

[Disease]

I don't want to have to sit at the server making up various GPO's or via remote desktop..

I would rather sit at home on my laptop work through various policies and then bring them into work to test on a test ou.

[NetworkGeezer]

@altecole

The operative word here is 'offline'. Disease did not say whether he wanted this for testing purposes or just so that he could work at home.

[Geoff]

I suspect having VMWare or equivalent on your laptop with a virtualised copy of Windows Server running is the best way to go. Assuming your laptop can handle the extra load.

[j17sparky]

^ I agree

Wouldnt even bother looking for 3rd party things myslef as theres no garrenty they will work 100%

[Ravening_Wolf]

VirtualPC 2007 is free. Would that do?

[altecsole]

@altecole

The operate word here is offline. Disease did not say whether he wanted this for testing purposes or just so that he could work at home.

Why else would you want to do this? I assumed (correctly) that this was for testing purposes. As far as I know there is no way to test group policies offline? I use VMWare workstation on my laptop to run a virtual domain with a test OU setup like I described.

[Disease]

@altecsole

I don't want to test them, I want to play around with my GPO design, create new policies, etc. I only want to do this for design purposes only.

I only want to sit and sift through gpo at leisure as I don't have enough time at work to revamp it.

Will look into the VMware solution.