Group Policy: Fundamentals, Security, and Troubleshooting

5.4. Intermixing Group Policy and NT 4 System Policy

I've already discussed how Group Policy cannot apply to Windows 9x or Windows NT clients. Group Policy applies only to Windows 2000 clients and newer. However, the opposite is not true. That is, NT 4 System Policy (whose filename is NTCONFIG.POL) is perfectly valid and accepted on Windows 2000 and newer. You might have an occasion to use both at the same time—typically if you're in the middle of an NT 4–to–Active Directory migration. If this happens, it's likely you'll have both Active Directory Group Policy and legacy NT 4 System Policy on the same network.

If you're trying to migrate from NT to Active Directory, you basically have four major scenarios:

1. Both computer and user accounts in ...