Troubleshooting the Application of Group Policy Objects

As you have seen in this chapter, Group Policy is an all-encompassing, powerful tool that enables you to configure a large number of settings that affect users and computers in your network. Although you might be able to keep up with what Group Policy is doing in a small organization, the application of policy settings tends to quickly become more complicated as the organization grows and multiple administrators configure additional policy settings.

Complicated implementations of Group Policy often generate unexpected results. Back in the days of Windows 2000, troubleshooting problems frequently meant printing out settings applied at the various levels, disabling certain GPOs or portions of them, and performing a long series of tests. Since Windows Server 2003, Microsoft has included tools that help you troubleshoot, test, and plan. These include the Resultant Set of Policy snap-in, the Group Policy Modeling Wizard, and Group Policy Results.