Defining Client Administration and Configuration Standards

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Enhancing user productivity and reducing the costs associated with managing client computers are among most information technology (IT) organization's primary goals. Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Server and Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Professional provide a number of new user-oriented and management-oriented features that your client and mobile computing teams can use to enhance user productivity and manage client support costs.

This chapter is designed to help you identify and implement these features in your organization. In addition, this chapter introduces you to the expanded management capabilities provided through Group Policy in Windows 2000 Professional and Windows 2000 Server. This information is going to help you create administration and client standards for your organization that take advantage of these capabilities. If you have not done so already, complete an assessment of your organization's client software and hardware infrastructure. For more information, see "Building a Windows 2000 Test Lab" and "Testing Applications for Compatibility with Windows 2000" in this book. You might also want to review your organization's IT administration goals.

In This Chapter

Making Client Systems Manageable

Using Group Policy to Administer Clients

Configuring Hardware

Defining User Interface Standards

Client Standards Planning Task List

Chapter Goals

This chapter will help you develop the following planning documents:

  • Client Administration Plan

  • Preferred Client Configurations

  • For more information about using Group Policy and creating administrative template (.adm) files, see "Group Policy" in the Microsoft ®  Windows ®  2000 Server Resource Kit Distributed Systems Guide .

  • For more information about using Microsoft® IntelliMirror® features in Windows 2000, see "Applying Change and Configuration Management" in this book.

  • For more information about installation services and tools, see "Automating Client Installation and Upgrade" and "Using Systems Management Server to Deploy Windows 2000" in this book.

  • For more information about deploying Terminal Services, see "Deploying Terminal Services" in this book.

  • For more information about planning Windows 2000 security features, see "Planning Distributed Security" in this book.