Windows Server® 2012 Unleashed

Local Group Policies

You can apply two different types of policies to Windows systems and Windows system user accounts: local group policies and Active Directory domain-based group policies. Local group policies exist on all Windows systems, but domain-based group policies are available only in an Active Directory forest. Until the release of Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, servers and workstations could contain and apply only a single local computer policy. This policy contained settings for both the local computer and the user who logged on to the computer.

In many environments, usually because of legacy or line-of-business application requirements, end users were often granted local Administrators group membership on workstations and ...