Using Control Panel and Group Policies : Implementing Group Policies with Windows Vista

Group policies are mostly used by system administrators who want to make sure that novice users don’t have access to dangerous tools (such as the Registry Editor), or who want to ensure a consistent computing experience across multiple machines. Group policies are also ideally suited to situations in which multiple users share a single computer.

Working with Group Policies

You implement group policies using the Group Policy editor, a Microsoft Management Console snap-in. To start the Group Policy editor, follow these steps:

The Group Policy window that appears is divided into two sections:

Left pane— This pane contains a treelike hierarchy of policy categories, which is divided into two main categories: Computer Configuration and User Configuration. The Computer Configuration policies apply to all users and are implemented before the logon. The User Configuration policies apply only to the current user and, therefore, are not applied until that user logs on.

Right pane— This pane contains the policies for whichever category is selected in the left pane.

The idea, then, is to open the tree’s branches to find the category you want. When you click the category, its policies appear in the right pane. For example, Figure 1 shows the Group Policy window with the Computer Configuration, Administrative Templates, System, Logon category highlighted.

Figure 1. When you select a category in the left pane, the category’s policies appear in the right pane.

In the right pane, the Setting column tells you the name of the policy, and the State column tells you the current state of the policy. Click a policy to see its description on the left side of the pane. To configure a policy, double-click it. The type of window you see depends on the policy:

• For simple policies, you see a window similar to the one shown in Figure 2. These kinds of policies take one of three states: Not Configured (the policy is not in effect), Enabled (the policy is in effect and its setting is enabled), and Disabled (the policy is in effect but its setting is disabled).

  Figure 2. Simple policies are Not Configured, Enabled, or Disabled.

  

• Other kinds of policies require extra information when the policy is enabled. For example, Figure 3 shows the window for the Run These Programs at User Logon policy. When Enabled is activated, the Show button appears; you use it to specify one or more programs that run when the computer starts.

Example: Controlling Access to Control Panel

You can use group policies to hide and display Control Panel icons and to configure other Control Panel access settings. To see how this works, follow these steps: