Personal IT Experiences » Group Policy

Active Directory Explorer

ptsnorth — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 16:02:36 +0000

Active Directory Explorer AD Explorer is an advanced Active Directory AD viewer and editor. You can use AD Explorer to easily navigate an AD database, define favorite locations, view object properties and attributes without having to open dialog boxes, edit permissions, view an objects schema, and execute sophisticated searches that you can save and re-execute.

AD Explorer also includes the ability to save snapshots of an AD database for off-line viewing and comparisons. When you load a saved snapshot, you can navigate and explorer it as you would a live database. If you have two snapshots of an AD database you can use AD Explorers comparison functionality to see what objects, attributes and security permissions changed between them.

AD Explorer works on Windows 2000 and higher.

Active Directory Explorer v1.0

When Was The GPO Last Refreshed?

ptsnorth — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 20:51:12 +0000

If you’re creating and troubleshooting the effects of group policies (GPO) on your computer, there is a command line utility you can download and install called GPTime.exe. It’s one simple executable that I unzipped and copied into the same folder as the Win2k3 Resource Kit tools. The resource kit folder is already included in the path statement of my computer.

Download GPTime.exe

Configure your group policy then perform a gpupdate /force to apply the group policy change. After the update is completed, run gptime.exe to see when the group policies were really updated on the computer.

What Group Policies Have Been Applied?

ptsnorth — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 19:57:47 +0000

In Windows XP or Windows 2003, open an entire command window and type -> GPUpdate . All of the current policy settings affecting your computer (or server) and your account are displayed.

You can also see a history of the application of group policies by inspecting the registry.

To inspect the group policies applied to your local computer, use Regedt32 to navigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Group Policy\History

To inspect the group policies applied to your account, navigate to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Group Policy\History

Each sub-key represents an installed Group Policy Extension and each Group Policy Object is a subkey numbered from 0, the first GPO applied.

JSI Tip 2487. What group policies have been applied?