Recipe 9.2 Creating a GPO

9.2.1 Problem

You want to create a GPO to force users to have a particular desktop configuration or provision configuration settings on workstations or servers.

9.2.2 Solution

9.2.2.1 Using a graphical user interface

1. Open the GPMC snap-in.

2. In the left pane, expand the Forest container, expand the Domains container, and browse to the domain of the target GPO.

3. Right-click on the Group Policy Objects container and select New.

4. Enter the name of the GPO and click OK.

9.2.2.2 Using a command-line interface

> creategpo.wsf <GPOName> [/domain:<DomainDNSName>]

9.2.2.3 Using VBScript

' This code creates an empty GPO. ' ------ SCRIPT CONFIGURATION ------ strGPO      = "<GPOName>"        ' e.g. Sales GPO strDomain   = "<DomainDNSName>"  ' e.g. rallencorp.com ' ------ END CONFIGURATION --------- set objGPM = CreateObject("GPMgmt.GPM") set objGPMConstants = objGPM.GetConstants( )    ' Initialize the Domain object set objGPMDomain = objGPM.GetDomain(strDomain, "", objGPMConstants.UseAnyDC) ' Create the GPO and print the results set objGPO = objGPMDomain.CreateGPO( ) WScript.Echo "Successfully created GPO" objGPO.DisplayName = strGPO WScript.Echo "Set GPO name to " & strGPO

9.2.3 Discussion

When you create a GPO through the GPMC, it is initially empty with no settings or links configured. See Recipe 9.6 for more on modifying GPO settings, and Recipe 9.12 for creating a link.

9.2.3.1 Using VBScript

To create a GPO, I first instantiate a GPMDomain object for the domain to add the GPO to. This is accomplished with the GPM.GetDomain method. Then it is just a matter of calling the GPMDomain.CreateGPO method (with no parameters) to create an empty GPO. A GPM.GPO object is returned from this method, which I then use to set the display name of the GPO.

9.2.4 See Also

MS KB 216359 (HOW TO: Identify Group Policy Objects in the Active Directory and SYSVOL) and MSDN: GPMDomain.CreateGPO