Which folder stores policy settings

This piece will cover how to open and use Group Policy Editor, some important security settings in GPOs, and some alternatives to gpedit. You can do anything from set a desktop wallpaper to disable services and remove Explorer from the default start menu.

Group policies control what version of network protocols are available and enforce password rules. A corporate IT security team benefits significantly by setting up and maintaining a strict Group Policy.

Here are a few examples of good IT security group policies:. Those are just a few examples of how an IT security team could use Group Policies. If the goal is a more secure and hardened environment for your organization, use group policies to enforce good security habits. The Group Policy Editor window is a list view on the left and a contextual view on the right.

When you click an item on the left side, it changes the focus of the right to show you details about that thing you clicked.

There are hundreds of different settings like this in Group Policy Editor. Click around or view the Microsoft documentation for a list of all of them. The Computer node contains policy settings that are relevant only for computers. These Computer settings could be startup scripts, shutdown scripts, and setting that control how the local firewall should be configured.

Every setting is relevant to the computer itself, no matter who is logged on at a given moment. The User node contains policy settings that are relevant only for users. User settings make sense only on a per-user basis, like logon scripts, logoff scripts and availability of the Control Panel.

Think of this as every setting relevant to the currently logged-on user; these settings follow the user to every machine they use. When Group Policy is created at the local level, everyone who uses that machine is affected.

However, once you step up and use Active Directory , you can have nearly limitless Group Policy objects, with the ability to selectively decide which users and computers will get which settings. When we create a GPO, two things happen: We create some brand-new entries within Active Directory, and we automatically create some brand-new files on our domain controllers. Collectively, these items make up one GPO.

Creating a GPO merely makes it available, or ready to be used within the domain where it was created. That association is called linking.

Thus, any level in Active Directory can leverage multiple GPOs, which are standing by in the domain ready to be used. Remember, though, unless a GPO is specifically linked to a site, a domain, or an OU, it does not take any effect. Giving inheritance of settings from higher levels to lower levels, you might wonder what happens if two policy settings conflict. Perhaps a policy at the domain level specifies one setting but another policy at the OU level species reverse.

The result is simple: Policy settings further down the food chain take precedence. The files that are in the Central Store are replicated to all domain controllers in the domain.

To create a Central Store for. When you already have such a folder that has a previously built Central Store, use a new folder describing the current version such as:. Copy all files from the PolicyDefinitions folder on a source computer to the new PolicyDefinitions folder on the domain controller.

The source location can be either of the following ones:. The PolicyDefinitions folder on the Windows domain controller stores all. For example, English United States. When you have copied all. When you copy the. Also, make sure that the most recent Administrative Templates files are replicated. This advice also applies to service packs, as applicable. When this is finished, rename the current PolicyDefinitions folder to reflect that it's the previous version, such as PolicyDefinitions Then, rename the new folder such as PolicyDefinitions to the production name.

We suggest this approach as you can revert to the old folder in case you experience a severe problem with the new set of files. When you don't experience any problems with the new set of files, you can move the older PolicyDefinitions folder to an archive location outside sysvol folder.

Windows 8. We recommend that you use computers that are running Windows 8.