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Category Archives: Walkthrough

These posts, normally longer in length, completely walk through an entire technology or project.

Installing Fonts with Group Policy and MSIs

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User Account Control is really awesome – except for when it isn’t…

Example: UAC is great for stopping viruses (in fact, it might be the best tool Microsoft has introduced). UAC is always great for stopping some legitimate processes. In Vista – a standard user couldn’t refresh their IP address or change their time zone… One legitimate process still being stopped by UAC is the installation of Fonts by standard users.

Installing Fonts with Group Policy

 

So if you have tried editing security permissions and changing registry settings to allow installation, let me tell you – give up. If you want to deploy fonts in a Vista+ world, you will need to use Group Policy. Here is how:

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How To: Safely Demote a Domain Controller

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I see a couple of common questions every day on Experts-Exchange and TechNet Forums. The common theme in each question is that the answer isn’t easily found in one place. As in this post, Microsoft documents the process of demoting a DC in seven different Knowledge Base articles. The next few posts will cover these common questions and the resources to solve them.

How can I safely demote a domain controller? Continue reading →

Policy or Preference?

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With every additional option added, complexity is increased. As an example, look no further than Group Policy. Back in 2005, life was simple. Group Policy Preferences didn’t yet exist. The next year, Microsoft bought Desktop Standard. Suddenly, we had two ways of doing things. Though a good thing, choosing between two ways can be difficult at times.  Let’s look at the differences.

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Playing with Processing: Group Policy Guide for Link Manipulation

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Order of Processing

LSDOU: Local, Site, Domain, Organizational Unit (OU). That is the order in which Group Policy applies. All local GPOs are applied first; this is followed by any applicable ones linked to a site. Next, GPOs linked at the domain are applied. Finally, GPOs linked to each OU are processed. These GPOs are applied in a top down approach. Higher OUs or levels such as a site or domain are applied first. Let’s look at a sample environment.

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