Windows Server® 2012 Unleashed

Policies and Preferences

GPOs are segmented into policy settings and preference settings for both Computer and User objects, as shown in Figure 27.3. Preferences provide many of the features that the group policy infrastructure was lacking in earlier versions, and preferences also provide many functions that were commonly handled with complex logon and startup scripts, with Registry file import tasks, and by administrators configuring the default user profile on workstations and servers. Many preference settings, such as the Registry and Drive Maps settings, would have previously been applied with scripts that required the workstation to be logged on to or started up on the internal network. With preference settings in domain group policies, ...