Microsoft® Windows Server 2003: Administrator’s Companion

Using Templates to Implement Security Policies

Windows Server 2003, as you now know or are quickly learning, has a rich and diverse range of security features. With these features, however, comes a multitude of security policies and attribute settings that need to be configured. Configuring a system with policies consistent with your company’s security needs is, in itself, no small task. Multiply that by all the computers at your site or in your organization, and you’ve quite a chore. And that doesn’t include the maintenance time required whenever company policies need to be reevaluated.

Enter security templates. A security template, quite simply, is a configuration file for all the security attributes of a system. Security templates are powerful ...