Recipe3.6.Controlling Exchange Settings Through Group Policy Objects

Recipe 3.6. Controlling Exchange Settings Through Group Policy Objects

Problem

You want to apply Exchange settings like the GC/DC profiles described in Recipe 3.0 to all the servers in your organization.

Solution

Using a graphical user interface

1. Create a policy template file for the registry key or keys you want to apply. (See the Discussion section for more on these files and how to create and use them.)

2. Launch the Microsoft Management Console (mmc.exe).

3. Add the Group Policy Object snap-in using the File Add/Remove Snap-in command.

4. When prompted for the target of the snap-in, use the Browse button to select the domain or OU policy where you want to apply the settings. (See the Discussion section for more on choosing a target.)

5. In the Group Policy Object snap-in, expand the policy and the Computer Configuration and Administrative Templates nodes.

6. Right-click the Administrative Templates node and choose the Add/Remove Templates command.

7. In the Add/Remove Templates dialog box, click the Add button, then browse to the location of your template file and click Open.

8. Click the Close button.

9. In the Administrative Templates node, navigate to the newly added policy item and apply the appropriate settings.

You can also use the Group Policy Management Console (GPMC), which is much more versatile than the Windows 2000 MMC snap-in. GPMC is available from www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/gpmc and can be used on Windows XP or Windows 2003 to manage Windows 2000 or Windows 2003 Active Directory environments.

Discussion

There are several ways to apply settings to Exchange servers. Depending on the kind of setting you're changing, the value that Exchange uses may come from Active Directory, the IIS metabase, or the local machine's registry. Exchange system policies (described in Recipe 4.5) allow you to set some policies on a per-administrative group basis, but if you have a setting that depends on registry keys, you'll need to use the group policy object mechanism to get these changes applied to the servers en masse. If you want to create custom values for registry-based settings across Exchange servers, the simplest way to do so is to create a template (or ADM file) and attach it to a group policy object. For example, you can create a template that implements the Outlook Web Access 2003 timeout settings (described in MS KB 830827), then apply the template settings to the OU that contains all of your Exchange OWA servers. The template format is documented on MSDN.

See Also

Recipe 4.5 for using Exchange system policies, "Administrative Template File Format" definition on MSDN (http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/policy/policy/administrative_template_file_format.asp), Chapter 9 of the Active Directory Cookbook, and Chapter 6 of Learning Windows 2003 (O'Reilly)