Active Directory Cookbook

9.2. Creating a GPO

Problem

You want to create a GPO to force users to have a particular desktop configuration or provision configuration settings on workstations or servers.

Solution

Using a graphical user interface

1. Open the GPMC snap-in.

2. In the left pane, expand the Forest container, expand the Domains container, and browse to the domain of the target GPO.

3. Right-click on the Group Policy Objects container and select New.

4. Enter the name of the GPO and click OK.

Using a command-line interface

> creategpo.wsf <GPOName> [/domain:<DomainDNSName>]

Using VBScript

' This code creates an empty GPO.
' ------ SCRIPT CONFIGURATION ------
strGPO      = "<GPOName>"        ' e.g. Sales GPO
strDomain   = "<DomainDNSName>"  ' e.g. rallencorp.com
' ------ END CONFIGURATION ---------

set objGPM = CreateObject("GPMgmt.GPM")
set objGPMConstants = objGPM.GetConstants( )
  
' Initialize the Domain object
set objGPMDomain = objGPM.GetDomain(strDomain, "", objGPMConstants.UseAnyDC)

' Create the GPO and print the results
set objGPO = objGPMDomain.CreateGPO( )
WScript.Echo "Successfully created GPO"
objGPO.DisplayName = strGPO
WScript.Echo "Set GPO name to " & strGPO

Discussion

When you create a GPO through the GPMC, it is initially empty with no settings or links configured. See Recipe 9.6 for more on modifying GPO settings, and Recipe 9.12 for creating a link.

Using VBScript

To create a GPO, I first instantiate a GPMDomain object for the domain to add the GPO to. This is accomplished with the GPM.GetDomain method. Then it is just ...