If you’ve installed the new Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) on Vista, SP1, you will notice some subtle changes in the Group Policy Editor. Namely, if you type gpedit.msc like you used to in the pre-RSAT days, you will still launch the GP Editor, focused on the local GPO, but you won’t see the new Group Policy Preferences namespace, as you do when you launch GP Editor focused on a domain GPO. This is simply because GP Preferences are not supported on the local GPO.

In addition, as I’ve had up on my GPOGUY.COM FAQ for a while, in the pre-RSAT days you could launch GP Editor, focused on a domain-based GPO by using the following syntax:

gpedit.msc /gpobject:"LDAP://CN={31B2F340-016D-11D2-945F-00C04FB984F9},CN=Policies,CN=System,DC=cpandl,DC=com"

The above command would launch GP Editor, focused on the Default Domain Policy in the cpandl.com domain. But if you try that on a RSAT-installed SP1 Vista system, you will get the Default Domain Policy, but you won’t see any of the Group Policy Preferences options. Ok, so there must be a way around this, right?

Correct! Its called gpme.msc, or the Group Policy Management Editor MMC snap-in tool. So, if we take the above syntax, and change it up a bit:

gpme.msc /gpobject:"LDAP://CN={31B2F340-016D-11D2-945F-00C04FB984F9},CN=Policies,CN=System,DC=cpandl,DC=com"

We get the desired result, which is the GP Management Editor launching focused on the Default Domain Policy, and showing the GP Preferences namespace! Success…

Tags:

Group Policy Preferences, GPEdit.MSC, GPME.MSC, RSAT