Final Thoughts

You want to be a better troubleshooter for Group Policy issues? You're well on the way.

In the last chapter, you learned when Group Policy is supposed to apply. It doesn't just happen when it wants to, it happens according to a set of precise timings. In this chapter, you learned two more key items to help on your troubleshooting journey. First, you learned the real story about what's going on under the hood. Then, you learned how to take that knowledge and troubleshoot Group Policy. Hopefully, every page in this chapter will help you further trouble-shoot Group Policy should something go awry. However, here are some parting tips when troubleshooting Group Policy:

  • Check the basics When troubleshooting, first check the basics. Make sure you're not using "Block Inheritance" or "Enforce" where you shouldn't.

  • Check permissions Users need both "Read" and "Apply Group Policy" permissions to the GPOs. Computers do too. If a user (or group the user is in) is Denied access to either of these permissions, then the GPO will not apply.

  • Leverage the built-in tools Use the built-in debugging tools, such as the Event Viewer, supercharged with the Diagnostics key to help troubleshoot even tougher problems.

  • Leverage additional tools There are lots of additional troubleshooting tools at your disposal. Be sure to check out the Appendix, in which we introduce WinPolicies, GPMonitor, GPInventory, and more.

  • Verify replication is working If a client isn't getting the GPOs you think they should, it just may be that normal replication hasn't finished yet. GPCs replicate via Active Directory replication. GPTs replicate via FRS replication. They are supposed to take the same path , but sometimes they don't. Use GPOTOOL and REPLMON to troubleshoot.

  • Check out Microsoft's troubleshooting documentation There are two official white papers on Group Policy troubleshooting from Microsoft. One can be found at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=14949 .

    There's also another, more modern version at http://tinyurl.com/81d5p . I was one of the reviewers who provided input into this later document.

  • Remember all the log files at your disposal In this chapter, we've discussed a few log files. However, there are many more available. As we'll see in other chapters along our journey, there log files for many processes related to Group Policy. We've just seen UserEnv.log, but additionally, there is FDeploy.log (examined in Chapter 9, in the Folder Redirection section), Appmgmt.log (examined in Chapter 10, in the Software Installation section), and others. Reference the two aforementioned Microsoft documents on Group Policy troubleshooting for the additional logs, in areas such as troubleshooting "internal" GPMC or Group Policy Object editor workings via the Gpmgmt.1og and GPedit.1og, respectively.



Group Policy, Profiles, and IntelliMirror for Windows 2003, Windows XP, and Windows 2000
Group Policy, Profiles, and IntelliMirror for Windows2003, WindowsXP, and Windows 2000 (Mark Minasi Windows Administrator Library)
ISBN: 0782144470
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 110

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