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The Microsoft Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) with Service Pack 1 (SP1) unifies management of Group Policy across the enterprise. The GPMC consists of a MMC snap-in and a set of programmable interfaces for managing Group Policy.
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GPMC simplifies the management of Group Policy by making it easier to understand, deploy, manage, and troubleshoot Group Policy implementations. GPMC also enables automation of Group Policy operations via scripting.
GPMC can be used to manage Windows Server 2003 as well as Windows 2000-based Group Policy implementations. Customers who have at least one valid license of Windows Server 2003 or Windows 2000 Server can obtain and use an unlimited number of copies of GPMC. Please see the End User License Agreement (EULA) provided with the GPMC software for details on licensing terms.
Key features delivered via GPMC include:
- A unified graphical user interface (GUI) that makes Group Policy much easier to use.
- Backup/restore of Group Policy objects (GPOs).
- Import/export and copy/paste of GPOs and Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) filters.
- Simplified management of Group Policy–related security.
- HTML reporting for GPO settings and Resultant Set of Policy (RSoP) data.
- Scripting of Group Policy related tasks that are exposed within this tool (not scripting of settings within a GPO).
Prior to GPMC, administrators were required to use several Microsoft tools to manage Group Policy. GPMC integrates the existing Group Policy functionality exposed in these tools into a single, unified console, along with the new capabilities listed above.
GPMC with SP1 contains the following updates:
- Various bug fixes. GPMC with SP1 fixes customer-reported bugs found in GPMC sample scripts, GPO reporting, and in the Migration Table Editor (MTE). Furthermore, fixes have been provided to address bugs found from Dr. Watson crash data and to allow the GPMC RSoP wizard to properly function if Internet Connection Firewall (ICF) is enabled on the computer running GPMC.
- New languages. GPMC with SP1 is now also available in French, German, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and Spanish.
- Updated GPMC EULA. GPMC with SP1 includes an updated end-user license agreement (EULA) that allows GPMC with SP1 to be installed as long as you have a valid Windows Server 2003 or Windows 2000 Server license. For more information, see the GPMC EULA, which is shown during installation of GPMC with SP1.
- Updated MSXML4. MSXML4 has been updated from MSXML4 SP1 to MSXML4 SP2.
Supported Operating System
Windows Server 2003, Windows XP
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- GPMC runs on Windows XP Professional SP1 and Windows Server 2003 computers and can manage Group Policy in either Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003 domains.
- For Windows XP Professional users, you must have the following installed prior to installing the GPMC:
- Windows XP Service Pack 1
- .NET Framework
- Your domain controllers must be running Windows 2000 with Service Pack 2 or later. Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 is recommended. Domain controller(s) located in an external forest must have Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 or later installed if you will be accessing those domain controllers from a computer running GPMC, because GPMC requires signing and encryption of all LDAP communications. If do not have Service Pack 3 or later installed on the Windows 2000 domain controller(s) in an external forest, you can temporarily relax LDAP signing and encryption requirements by modifying the registry of the computer running GPMC, as described in Knowledge Base Article 325465.
- When installing the GPMC on Windows XP Professional with SP1, GPMC Setup prompts you to install Windows XP QFE Q326469 if it is not already present. This QFE updates your version of gpedit.dll to version 5.1.2600.1186, which is required by GPMC. This QFE will be made available in Windows XP Service Pack 2.
- If the language version of the GPMC doesn't match the language of your operating system, GPMC will not install the QFE. You will need to separately obtain and install this QFE. To obtain this QFE, please see Knowledge Base Article 326469.
Notes:- The GPMC does not run on 64-bit versions of Microsoft Windows.
- Setup for GPMC with SP1 automatically removes the original version before installing the new version. However, if you have installed any pre-release versions of GPMC (such as beta or release candidate versions), you must first remove the pre-release version of GPMC before installing GPMC with SP1.
- The sample scripts that shipped with the previously released version of GPMC will be replaced with new sample scripts included in GPMC with SP1. If you modified any of the sample scripts and you want to preserve those changes, rename your modified sample scripts to a different file name before installing GPMC with SP1.
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- Click the Download link to start the download, or choose a different language from the drop-down list and click Go.
- Do one of the following:
- To start the installation immediately, click Open or Run this program from its current location.
- To copy the download to your computer for installation at a later time, click Save or Save this program to disk.
- To install the GPMC, run the gpmc.msi package. After you accept the End User License Agreement (EULA), all necessary files are installed to the “%Program Files%\GPMC” folder.
- Prior to starting and using the GPMC, please be sure to read the release notes RelNotes.rtf, which is located in the %Program Files%\GPMC" folder.
- After installation of the GPMC, you can open the snap-in using either of the following methods:
- You can open the pre-configured GPMC.msc file. To do this, click Start, click Run, type GPMC.msc and then choose OK. Alternatively, click the Group Policy Management shortcut in the Administrative Tools folder from the Control Panel.
- You can create a custom MMC console that contains the GPMC snap-in. To do this:
- Open MMC, by clicking Start, clicking Run, typing MMC, and then clicking OK.
- From the File menu, choose Add/Remove Snap-in, and then click Add.
- In the Add Standalone Snap-in dialog box, select Group Policy Management and click Add.
- Click Close, and then OK.
- GPMC includes several sample scripts. These are installed in the %ProgramFiles%\GPMC\Scripts folder. You should use cscript.exe to execute all of the sample scripts. For more details on scripts, see the ScriptingReadMe.rtf file in the scripts folder. For instructions and usage information for each script, run each script with the “/?” parameter.
