Enable Logging for Group Policy Management Console

Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2

To troubleshoot problems with administering Group Policies using the Group Policy Management Console, you can enable GPMC logging. This logging covers all Group Policy administration tasks, except editing Group Policy objects.

When To Enable GPMC Logging

GPMC logging, by default, is set to only log errors. To avoid using unnecessary disk space, you should leave GPMC logging at the default setting. You can enable GPMC logging to gather verbose troubleshooting information when an administrative task causes errors.

Enabling Verbose GPMC Logging

Warning

This section contains information about modifying the registry. Before you modify the registry, make sure to back it up and make sure that you understand how to restore the registry if a problem occurs. For information about how to back up, restore, and edit the registry, see Description of the Microsoft Windows Registry on the Microsoft Web site (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=35500).

To enable GPMC logging on the administrative computer

  1. Log on to the administration computer as the administrator.

  2. Click Start, Run, and then run Regedit to add the following registry value (or, , if the value already exists, modify it):

    Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Diagnostics

  3. Enter the following:

    Value: gpmgmttracelevel

    Value Type: REG_DWORD

    Value Data: 2 (Hexadecimal)

Gpmgmttracelevel can have the following values:

  • NORMAL 0x00000001

  • VERBOSE 0x00000002

The default value is NORMAL (0x00000001).

To restrict GPMC logging to file output

  1. Log on to the administration computer as the administrator.

  2. Click Start, Run, and then run Regedit to add the following registry value (or, if the value already exists, modify it):

    Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Diagnostics

  3. Enter the following:

    Value: gpmgmtlogfileonly

    Value Type: REG_DWORD

    Value Data: 1 (Hexadecimal)

Gpmgmtlogfileonly can have the following values:

  • LOGTOFILEONLY 0x00000001

  • LOGTOFILEANDDEBUGGER 0x00000002

The default value is LOGTOFILEONLY (0x00010001).

GPMC writes to the following log files in the %Temp folder:

  • GPmgmt.log: contains all other GPMC logging information.

  • GPmgmtManaged.log: Contains logging information for the reporting functionality.

See Also

Concepts

Fixing Group Policy problems by using log files