Windows Server® 2012 Unleashed

Group Policy Inheritance

GPOs can be linked at the site, domain, and multiple OU levels. When an Active Directory infrastructure contains GPOs linked at the domain level, for example, every container and OU beneath the domain root container inherits any linked policies. As a default example, the Domain Controllers OU inherits the default domain policy from the domain.

GPO inheritance enables administrators to set a common base policy across an Active Directory infrastructure while allowing other administrators to apply more granular policies at a lower level that apply to subsets of users or computers. As an example of this, a GPO can be created and linked at the domain level that restricts all users from running Windows Update, while an OU representing ...