Group Policy Preferences Not Applying? Most of the time, our issues will come down to a handful of items and misconfigurations. As awesome as they may be, Group Policy Preferences (GPPs) gave us a whole new set of challenges and a few new ways to troubleshoot. Let’s go through the top ways to troubleshoot preferences (and learn a few performance tricks on the way)!
Category Archives: Best Practice
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Exhausting the USNs: Inventory + AD = :( ?
We have been writing a ton of information to Active Directory lately! From computer serial numbers, device models, and our current logged in user, we’ve greatly extended the everyday practical benefits of Active Directory. But does this come at a price? Reading the comments of a few different websites, you would certainly think so. Here is a sample:
if you do it [write to a computer] after every logon, you can quickly exhaust the USN for the whole AD domain! And then the domain is dead.
Wow! So, according to this guy – our whole domain will die? That doesn’t seem right. Unfortunately, I do not know enough to accept or deny this statement so I did some research (and contacted Microsoft).
I’ve Made My Domain Disappear!
3 Changes to Active Directory Users and Computers
It is fast becoming common knowledge that Microsoft will not be making one size fits all tools anymore. Instead, they will provide the basic tools and PowerShell support to automate/extend specific tasks. For proof of this, look no further than Office 365 or any other hosted Microsoft Service. But this change is good! IT Administrators can extend their tools to their environment. While Active Directory Users and Computers (ADUC) is an older tool, you should still modify it to fit your organization. Today, we will cover 3 changes you should make.
Updating Software with Group Policy
Updating software with Group Policy is the most difficult aspect of GPSI. To make things complicated, the software you are upgrading may not have been deployed with Group Policy to begin with! So what is an administrator to do? How can we avoid blowing our legs off when we upgrade? Follow these steps and find out!
CSE Processing Order – Know LSDOU? Learn this too!
One of the first things you are taught with Group Policy is LSDOU. Knowing that, you might think that all GPOs linked at a site is processed, then the domain, and then any OU/sub-OU. Any settings left would be the resultant set of policy, right? Not quite! If you have a complicated GPO with different items set (applications, preferences, security,etc), you need to know a second list. Enter the order of operations, also known as the CSE Processing Order.