Operations Guide for Microsoft Advanced Group Policy Management 4.0

You can use Microsoft Advanced Group Policy Management (AGPM) to extend the capabilities of the Group Policy Management Console (GPMC). AGPM provides comprehensive change control and improved management of Group Policy Objects (GPOs).

Using AGPM, you can do these tasks:

• Perform offline editing of GPOs so that you can create and test them before you deploy them to a production environment.

• Maintain multiple versions of a GPO in a central archive so that you can roll back if a problem occurs.

• Share the responsibility for editing, approving, and reviewing GPOs among multiple people by using role-based delegation.

• Eliminate the danger of multiple Group Policy administrators overwriting one another's work by using the check-in and check-out capability for GPOs.

• Analyze changes to a GPO, comparing it to another GPO or another version of the same GPO by using difference reporting.

• Simplify creating new GPOs by using GPO templates, storing common policy settings and preference settings to use as starting points for new GPOs.

• Delegate access to the production environment.

• Search for GPOs with specific attributes and filter the list of GPOs displayed.

• Export a GPO to a file so that you can copy it from a domain in a test forest to a domain in a production forest.

AGPM adds a Change Control folder under each domain displayed in the GPMC, in addition to a History tab for each GPO and Group Policy link displayed in the GPMC.

• Overview of Advanced Group Policy Management

• Best Practices for Version Control

• Checklist: Administer the AGPM Server and Archive

• Checklist: Create, Edit, and Deploy a GPO

• Search and Filter the List of GPOs

• Performing AGPM Administrator Tasks

• Performing Editor Tasks

• Performing Approver Tasks

• Performing Reviewer Tasks

• Troubleshooting AGPM

• User Interface: Advanced Group Policy Management