Microsoft® Windows Server 2003: Administrator’s Companion

Understanding Group Policies

For many small to medium networks, the groups built into Windows Server 2003 can, with perhaps a little tweaking, provide perfectly adequate security. In larger networks and those with special needs, however, the security settings might be too strict for some groups and too lax for others. For these situations, group policies can give administrators a degree of control that is as granular as one can wish for. In addition, group policies can reduce the amount of lost productivity when users accidentally delete system configuration files, “lose” vital folders, or introduce a virus to the network. Group Policy allows the administrator to delineate the elements of the user’s desktop environment including the programs ...