Windows 2000 Administration in a Nutshell

Name

Group Policy

Synopsis

A feature of Active Directory that enables centralized policy-based management of a Windows 2000 network.

Description

Group Policy lets you centrally define various user and computer settings for Windows 2000 computers on your network. These settings are then periodically refreshed to ensure their effect is maintained when changes occur in the objects they apply to. The advantages of using Group Policy on your network include the ability to:

• Centralize all policy settings for your enterprise at the domain or site level to enforce uniformity across administrative and physical locations. Group Policy is defined in Active Directory, the central repository of computer and network configuration information in Windows 2000.

• Manage different sets of users and computers by applying different policies to different sites, domains, and OUs in Active Directory. Administrators can also reduce their own workload by delegating management over different portions of the Active Directory hierarchy to trusted users and groups.

• Manage users’ desktop environments on their client computers to make users more productive and to reduce time spent troubleshooting configuration problems. This includes the ability to lock down users’ machines to prevent them from making changes to their working environment and the ability to have users’ data folders be accessible from any computer on the network.

• Manage the installation, update, repair, and removal of software on users’ client computers. ...