Help configuring IE Proxy for mixed XP/Vista/7/8 Domain GPO

[japes1980]

Hope someone can help with this.

Work in a primary school with a standard (i.e. NOT RM) Windows domain. Primary domain controller is running Windows Server 2008 R2.

We have a mixed bag of XP, Vista, Win 7 and (recently) Win 8 machines running IE, because of rolling upgrades to equipment. Our machines have to connect to the Internet via a central Proxy server. Until 4 Win 8 pro laptops arrived the other day, all ran happily. Proxy information was retrieved and applied, drives mapped happily and the machines talked away merrily. I had lots more hair than now! :-)

 

Then came Windows 8. It refused to do as it was told via the GPO.

 

I know that MS have removed Internet Explorer Maintenance from the GPO Editor, which happily deployed the proxy server details to all the machines in the Domain.

 

I have managed to create a new Default Domain GPO which pushes the proxy server info to Win 8 / 7 machines via the registry, but these changes are not reflected in the XP machines.

 

1) Is installing/deploying the client side extensions hot fix to the XP machines sufficient to get them to apply the registry settings for the proxy server?

2) If not, is it possible to create another registry GPO object to push to those (XP) machines only, by placing them in a separate group?

3) If these options are not possible, is it possible to configure Win Server 2008R2 to send proxy info via DHCP so that IE can automatically discover it?

 

 

Many thanks in advance,

 

J

[free780]

Cant u standardize on one os. Do you have a VL with m$?

[japes1980]

Unfortunately budget constraints mean that we simply can't afford to standardise. Licences and replacement of older hardware not capable of running newer OS would be prohibitively expensive. :-(

[TheScarfedOne]

Unfortunately budget constraints mean that we simply can't afford to standardise. Licences and replacement of older hardware not capable of running newer OS would be prohibitively expensive. :-(

 

I think they were meaning downgrade your Win8 machines to Win7. On your Q re registry settings to XP machines, yes you need the preferences pack.

[japes1980]

A fair and true point. Same problem with downgrading unfortunately. We'd have to spend the about the same amount of money acquiring downgrade rights.

[free780]

Then gpp is probably your best bet. Or write a proxy auto config file.