By Mark Burnett
As a security professional, dealing with group policy is a big part of my job, so I was anxious to watch the webcast TechNet Webcast: Group Policy in Windows Vista that covers the many new Group Policy enhancements and improvements in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. With nearly 1,300 new settings, Microsoft has definitely put some effort in this area.
The one thing I liked the most is that the webcast acknowledges the common customer pain points, which can be significant in some scenarios. The fact that they recognize these problems is a good indicator that they are working to fix them.
The webcast does a great demo of how you prepare Active Directory for the new policies, walking through each of the prep tools you need to run.
Windows Vista and Windows 2008 both include the Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) and the webcast has informative demos on using the GPMC. What’s interesting is that administrative templates now use an XML format and also have support for multiple languages.
For example, in the webcast, the presenter shows how you can create an administrative template in English and edit the settings in another language, in this case French.
With 3000 new Group Policy settings, the presenter obviously couldn’t cover all settings, but he did cover some of the biggest changes, such as firewall settings, shell configuration, QoS, printers, and device installation policy.
I found the new device installation policy settings most interesting because you can know precisely which devices or device classes users can install. This is particularly useful in organizations where it is important to keep data from walking out the door. According to the presenter, this was one of the most requested features for Windows Vista.
TIP: Use the new Group Policy settings to prevent users from connecting removable drives, MP3 players, and cameras but still allow any necessary peripherals. This helps keep sensitive data from leaving and viruses and other malware from entering the network.
If you work with Group Policy, take the time to watch the webcast TechNet Webcast: Group Policy in Windows Vista . There are some significant changes in Group Policy and it would be well worth your time to get up to speed.