Windows Server® 2008 Security Resource Kit

Managing Security Settings

If you open Group Policy editor and navigate to Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Local Options, you will see a couple of policy nodes—Users Rights Assignment and Security Options—that provide a number of settings for the hardening of your Windows systems. As with any security decisions that you make, however, there are always trade-offs between the level of security you desire and the loss of functionality or manageability you can tolerate. With many of the settings within these two policy areas, you often must make the decision about that trade-off prior to implementing that policy. The good news is that since Windows Server 2003, SP1, Microsoft has provided warnings within each policy item ...