Microsoft Windows Vista Management and Administration

Chapter 22. Understanding Group Policy Basics to Manage Windows Vista Systems

What Are Group Policy Objects (GPOs)?

Group Policy describes the Microsoft implementation of a methodology of managing computers and users in a centralized fashion in an Active Directory environment. Group Policy Objects (GPOs) are the collections of various application and Registry settings that have been defined by an administrator to enforce a particular behavior on a user or computer object.

This concept was initially introduced back in the Windows NT 4.0 days when an administrator was able to use Policy Enforcement to force a workstation to conform to particular behaviors. This was usually limited to restricting a user’s local rights to prevent the user from changing ...