Using GPMC Group Policy Modeling to Evaluate Group Policy Settings Before Deployment

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

Use Group Policy Modeling to calculate the net effect of several GPOs before deployment. These calculated settings are reported in HTML and are displayed in a GPMC browser window on the Settings tab in the Details pane for the selected GPO. You can expand and contract the settings under each item by clicking hide or show so that you can see all the settings, or only a few. To create a Group Policy Modeling query, you must have the Perform Group Policy Modeling analyses permission on the domain or OU that contains the objects on which you want to run the query.

To run the wizard, right-click Group Policy Modeling (or an Active Directory container), and then click Group Policy Modeling Wizard. If you run the wizard from an Active Directory container, the wizard fills in the Container fields for user and computer with the LDAP distinguished name of that container.

When you have answered all the questions in the wizard, your answers are saved as a query that is represented by a new item under the Group Policy Modeling item. Your answers appear as if they were from a single GPO. However, the display does show which GPO is responsible for each setting, under the heading Winning GPO.

To save the results of the modeling, right-click the query, and then click Save Report. You can also print the results by right-clicking the query, and then clicking Print.