This chapter shows you how to administer Group Policy, which is essential to meeting the needs of changing organizations. A key tool in Group Policy administration is generating Resultant Set of Policy (RSoP), a feature that simplifies policy implementation and troubleshooting. You must be able to use RSoP in Logging mode to determine the resultant effect of policy settings that have been applied to an existing user and computer based on a site, domain, and OU. You can also use RSoP in Planning mode to simulate the resultant effect of policy settings that are applied to a user and a computer. Planning your Group Policy strategy is essential to providing the most efficient Group Policy implementation for your organization. Another part of effective Group Policy administration is the ability to redirect folders, which provides users with an access point for storing and finding information and administrators with an access point for managing information. Using the Folder Redirection node in Group Policy, you can redirect the location of Application Data, Desktop, My Documents, My Pictures, and Start Menu. Finally, you must be able to provide users with access to redirected folders even when they are not connected to the network. You can do this by learning to use the Offline Files feature, which caches files accessed through folder redirection onto the hard drive of the local computer.

Lessons in this Chapter:

•       Lesson 1: Managing Group Policy with RSoP

•       Lesson 2: Managing Special Folders with Group Policy

•       Lesson 3: Troubleshooting Group Policy

Administering Group Policy

Exam Objectives in this Chapter:

•       Plan a Group Policy strategy using Resultant Set of Policy Planning mode

•       Troubleshoot Group Policy application deployment issues

•       Troubleshoot the application of Group Policy security settings

•       Redirect folders using Group Policy