What are some best practices for Group Policy management?

Group Policies or Group Policy Objects (GPOs) allow administrators to manage and configure OS, application, and user settings in an Active Directory (AD) environment. They are used to granularly enforce security settings, control user environments, and configure system behaviors across multiple computers in a network. For instance, administrators can use Group Policies to standardize the desktop environment of users, including setting the wallpaper, preventing users from changing themes, or hiding specific control panel items. This article outlines several best practices that organizations can implement to guarantee effective and safe management of Group Policies.

GPO best practices

• Proper GPO and OU set up

  A well-organized AD makes it easier to manage policies and delegate tasks. To achieve this, set up your Organizational Units (OUs) in your AD environment to reflect your organization's structure, such as by department or location, and separate users and computers into different OUs.

  Another best practice is to use clear and descriptive names for your GPOs and minimize the number of GPOs linked to each OU. Providing descriptive names for GPOs enable administrators and other technicians to understand a GPO's purpose at a glance.

  ADManager Plus, an AD management and reporting tool, enables administrators to structure their AD environment by offering various OU management capabilities to efficiently create and manage OUs in an AD domain. Additionally, administrators can also use ADManager Plus to create and manage GPOs.

• Strategic GPO application

  One of the key aspects of strategic GPO application is ensuring that GPOs are linked at the appropriate level within an AD. Instead of applying GPOs at the domain level, which affects all users and computers in entire domain, they can be linked to specific OUs. This approach ensures that GPOs are applied on specific users or computers that need particular settings, reducing the risk of unintended consequences or conflicts with other policies.

  Using ADManager Plus, administrators can instantly link GPOs to appropriate OUs, sites, and domains when creating a GPO itself, ensuring security and consistent GPO application.

• Limited WMI filtering

  Filters, such as security filtering and WMI filtering, allow administrators to apply GPOs more precisely, targeting specific users, groups, or computers based on certain criteria. While these tools provide control over GPO applications, they should be used wisely to avoid unnecessary complexity and performance issues.

  ADManager Plus, with its user-friendly and intuitive interface, allows administrators to apply WMI and security filters, manage GPO links, and more in a few clicks.

• Optimized GPO processing

  Optimizing GPO processing is crucial for ensuring that policies are applied efficiently, minimizing delays during user logon and computer startup, and maintaining a smooth user experience across the network. While loopback processing allows user policies to be applied based on the computer they log on to, it adds additional steps to the GPO processing cycle, which can slow down logons. Therefore, it should be used sparingly and only when necessary.

• Default policy retention

  It's crucial to avoid modifying the Default Domain Policy and the Default Domain Controller Policy in your AD environment. These two policies are foundational settings within AD and are applied universally across the domain. Modifying these default policies can lead to unintended consequences, such as security vulnerabilities, conflicts with other GPOs, or difficulties in troubleshooting issues.

ADManager Plus' comprehensive GPO reports, such as the Recently Modified GPOs report, can be used to learn about these default policies and the changes made to them.