Welcome to ITFreeTraining video for Group Policy Preferences. This video will show you how
to unlock the functionally of Group Policy Preferences allowing you to customize the
user experience on a level that was never achievable before.
Group Policy preferences were first introduced in Windows Server 2008. It was not created
by Microsoft but instead was a 3rd party product called Policy Maker that Microsoft purchased.
Preferences add a lot of functionality to Group Policy. A lot of this functionality
was previously done with scripts, for example login scripts.
Preferences differ from traditional Group Policy in that they are not enforced like
Group Policy. Group Policy Preferences are applied to the system, but the user has the
choice to change the setting or use their own.
Like Group Policy, Preferences require a Client Side Extension or CSE in order for it to be
applied on the target operating system. Without the CSE support on the client, the settings
will simply be ignored. Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7 come with the CSE built in,
however operating systems like Windows Vista and Windows XP need to have the CSE added.
This can be done by downloading the update through the Microsoft web site or installing
the update through Windows Update. The CSE update will appear as an optional update in
Windows update. I will now change to my Windows 2008 Domain
Controller to have a look at how to set up Group Policy Preferences.
First of all, I will open group Policy Management from the start menu. If you have watched our
previous videos on Group Policy, you will remember that I configured many settings in
Group Policy for options like the wallpaper and loopback processing. For this demonstration
I have removed all these settings so I can start with a clean slate so to speak.
To configure Group Policy Preferences, I will first create a new Group Policy under the
New York OU. I will call this new Group Policy Object New York Policy. Once the Group Policy
Object has been created, I will right click on it and select edit.
In the Group Policy under preferences, you can see that preferences are divided into
two sections, Windows Settings and Control Panel Settings. To start with, I will look
at Windows Settings. In the Previous Group Policy videos, I configured the desktop wallpaper
using settings found under administrative tools. Unfortunately this setting is only
found under the user side of Group Policy, not the computer side. In this video I will
use preferences to bridge the gap allowing me to configure desktop wallpaper based on
the computer and even the operating system the client is running.
To do this, I will first use preferences to create some folders on the local computer.
To do this, select folders and right click on the left side and select new folder. In
this case, I will create a new folder on the c drive called ITSupport. Under this directory
I will create a sub folder called WallPaper. In this case, the folder will contain desktop
wallpaper, but I can copy and create additional folders and copy additional files as required.
For example, I could copy over files to this folder that could be used to help troubleshoot
the computer when there are problems. Now that a local folder has been created,
the next step that I will do is select the file’s option. Like before, all I need to
do is select the option new file. For the source file, I will specify a wallpaper that
I created for WindowsXP computers. Once selected, the next part is to select
the destination. This is where the magic happens. For the destination I will enter in the Wallpaper
folder that I created on the c drive, however I will change the name of the file to default.
I could also create additional file settings for other operating systems like Windows Vista
and Windows 7, but if I do that at present, won’t they overwrite each other? The trick
to getting this to work is to select the common tab.
On the common tab is the option item-level targeting, probably the most powerful feature
of preferences. If I now select the button targeting, you will notice at the top the
option new item. Just look at how many different items you can specifically target settings
for. You can test for a particular operating system, hardware like the CPU, RAM, the computer
name, just to name a few. In this case I will select the option operating
system. For the operating system I will select Windows XP. I now have a setting that will
copy the Windows XP wallpaper to the local system only if the operating system is Windows
XP. I would also need to create settings for Windows Vista and Windows 7. This would ensure
that the file default.jpg on the local drive is the wallpaper for that operating system.
If I move back to the last screen, notice that there are other options that are worth
looking at, like remove this item when it is no longer applied. This means that if this
setting is no longer being applied to that computer it will be removed. This is a useful
option to have. The next part I want to configure is the desktop
wallpaper setting found under user configuration. This is not a preference setting, but this
shows how the settings can be used together to achieve a result that was not possible
before. The setting that I will configure is Desktop
Wallpaper, an option that is not available under the computer side of Group Policy. This
essentially means that you could not normally configure desktop wallpaper based on the operating
system that was running. For this setting, I will configure the filename
to default.jpg file located on the c drive. Group Policy preferences will ensure that
the default file will contain the correct wallpaper for that computer; this group policy
setting simply needs to ensure that file is used for the wallpaper.
Since this video is on preferences, I want to also configure some preferences on the
user side of Group Policy. If I expand down into preferences, the option that I will select
is Drive Maps and select the option new Mapped drive.
In here, I can enter in the path for the mapped drive and also select the drive that the mapped
drive will use. Once this drive is added, I will also add a second mapped drive using
the same method. Once all the details are entered, I will select the tab common.
Once again I will select the Item-Level targeting. One point I would like to make with preferences
is notice that you can select the option Security Group. This means you could potentially only
map the drive if the user was a member of a certain group. This essentially means that
when a user is added to a group, Group Policy could be configured to automatically connect
them to the mapped drive this user now has access to.
I will now exit out of here and go back to preferences. Notice there are a lot of options
under Control Panel Settings. It is worth taking the time to look through these settings
to see what Group Policy Preferences can do for you. Everything from setting up local
printers, scheduled tasks, network connections like VPN connections, Power Options and other
settings can be configured here. There are many options here and every option can be
targeted to groups of users, computers, hardware or software settings depending on your needs.
Now that the Group Policy settings have been configured, I will change to my client operating
system Windows XP to see the effect that these Group Policy preferences have had.
Before preferences can be used on Windows XP or Windows Vista, the client side extension
needs to be installed. In Windows XP, this is done through Internet Explorer. To install
the CSE, select the option software, optional and then select Group Policy Preference Client
Side Extension for Windows XP. Once the install is completed, Group Policy
preferences will be available on this Windows XP Client. In the other videos, I have applied
Group Policy changes by login/off or restarting the computer. In this case, I will instead
open a command prompt and run the command GPUpdate with the force parameter.
GPUpdate updates Group Policy on the computer making sure the settings have been applied.
The force parameters ensures that the clients checks for new Group Policy settings rather
than using any cached settings on the computer. In this case, GPUdate has asked for the current
user to be logged off. Since there have been changes to the desktop wallpaper, a log off
is required. There have been changes at the computer level as well, and sometimes GPUpdate
will ask for a restart, however in this case only a log off is required.
Once I have logged off and logged back in again, notice that the wallpaper has changed
to the Windows XP wallpaper. If I open Windows Explorer, notice that the
directory ITSupport has been created in the c drive. In this directory is the WallPaper
directory with the file default containing the Windows XP wallpaper.
If I look at the p drive notice this has been mapped to the public drive that I specified
in the Group Policy preference. Above this notice the I drive is mapped to the London
share. This shows an important different between traditional Group Policy and preferences.
This drive was already mapped by the user before the Group Policy was applied. Group
Policy preferences did not overwrite the setting and instead allowed the user to keep the old
mapped drive setting. Group Policy in contrast would overwrite a setting, not give the user
the option. This has been an introduction to Group Policy
preferences. There are many settings that can be configured and the target option gives
you a lot of flexibility. It is worth the time having a look through the settings to
see what you can achieve. For more videos from this course please see
our web page or YouTube Channel. For the latest videos please consider subscribing. Thanks
for watching and see you next time.