EXERCISE 1.01G ENERATING A G ROUP P OLICY M ODELING R EPORTIN THIS EXE...

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Using Windows Server 2003 Planning Tools and Documentation • Chapter 1

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schedule, as well as review testing plans to ensure that all necessary equipment and softwarecan be made available at the requested time. Even if the lab manager is not dedicated solelyto this function, he or she should be responsible for the following:

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Establish and enforce test lab policies, procedures, budget, and inventory control.

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Oversee scheduling of required configuration changes and communicate thesechanges to other test lab users.

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Develop and manage an incident reporting and tracking system.

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Monitor the change-control process.

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Maintain test lab documentation (we’ll discuss documentation in the next sec-tion).

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Manage hardware and software configurations, updates, and preventative mainte-nance.

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Establish and maintain physical security.

Exploring the Group Policy Management Console (GMPC)

A prominent new feature of Windows Server 2003 is the GPMC, which allowsadministrators to monitor, troubleshoot, and plan Group Policy settings across anentire enterprise from a single management console. Along with a console windowthat provides a graphical representation of GPO settings, the GPMC also includes acollection of scripts that you can run from the command line to streamline admin-istration and planning tasks. You can download and install the GPMC fromMicrosoft’s Web site. Once it’s installed, you’ll have a shortcut to it in theAdministrative Tools folder, and it will be available as an MMC snap-in.The scripts that are included with GPMC can greatly simplify your life whenyou attempt to take stock of an existing network environment (for example, when

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you begin to plan for an upgrade). Using GPMC, you can quickly perform the fol-lowing tasks using its automated scripting function:

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List all GPOs that are present in a given domain

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List any disabled GPOs

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List GPOs at a backup location

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List GPOs by policy extension or security group

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List any orphaned GPOs (GPOs that are no longer linked to any ADobject) that are still present in the SYSVOL directory

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List unlinked GPOs in a domain

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