Creating and Managing GPOs

After your central store is configured and you have copied ADMX template files to it, you are ready to create GPOs for managing your environment. Beginning with Windows 7, you can create and manage GPOs in two ways:

• From the graphical user interface (GUI) by using the GPMC. This is the only method available for managing Group Policy on earlier versions of Windows.
• From the command line or via script automation by using the new Windows PowerShell Group Policy cmdlets. This method for managing Group Policy is new in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 and is described in the section titled "Creating and Managing GPOs Using Windows PowerShell" later in this tutorial.

Obtaining the GPMC

The GPMC is not included in a default Windows 7 install. Instead, you must download and install the RSAT for Windows 7 to use the GPMC on a Windows 7 computer. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Obtain the appropriate RSAT package (x86 or x64) for your Windows 7 administrative workstation from the Microsoft Download Center at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/ and install the RSAT .msu package on your computer.
2. Open Programs And Features from Control Panel and select Turn Windows Features On Or Off.
3. In the Windows Features dialog box, expand Remote Server Administration Tools, followed by Feature Administration Tools.
4. Select the check box next to Group Policy Management Tools and click OK.

Alternatively, instead of managing Group Policy by installing RSAT on a computer running Windows 7, you can manage it directly from a computer running Windows Server 2008 R2 by installing the RSAT feature using the Add Features Wizard in Server Manager.