[gptalk] Re: new GPO Compare product

Will also useful for maintaining consistency between 'supposedly identical' 
GPOs in different forests/domains. Up till now, I've have been using the 
"Beyond Compare" tool (no specific recommendation, it's just what we use). That 
effort requires:


*         Opening the GPMC

*         Saving HTML reports of GPOs I want to compare

*         Comparing the two in Beyond Compare (reads the HMTL in Text mode)

*         Manually scanning for differences (manually ignoring things like date 
report run, etc.)

Tedious, eh? But actually faster in some case for GPOS or RSoP reports with 
many settings. That's why I'll be looking at this one. What I'd "really" like 
is the ability to compare a "baseline" GPO against many other GPOs (e.g. choose 
one GPO as a baseline, then choose same GPO in many other domains at the same 
time...like for 8 child domains.. choose one and compare to 7 others). Have 
never found anything to support something like that.

Jerry Cruz | Group Policies Product Manager | Windows Infrastructure 
Architecture | Boeing IT

From: gptalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:gptalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On 
Behalf Of Andrew McHale
Sent: Monday, November 24, 2008 7:48 AM
To: gptalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [gptalk] Re: new GPO Compare product

Hi Darren,

Thanks for clearing this up. I guessed it might have been for larger 
installations than my 20 or so GPO's ;)

I find a sensible naming structure and keeping settings as granular as possible 
(not bunching a load of settings into the Default Domain Policy) makes it easy 
enough to compare.

13,000 GPO's though! Now THAT is a full time job!

Andrew

P.S. Thanks for sharing your resolution with us Shane, it's one more for the 
mental FAQ list ;)


From: Darren Mar-Elia [mailto:darren@xxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: 24 November 2008 14:48
To: gptalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [gptalk] Re: new GPO Compare product

Good questions. In many shops, esp. larger ones, folks might have lots of GPOs 
that are only different by virtue of a couple of settings. For example, I was 
working with a customer recently who had 13,000 GPOs! They needed to know if 
some of those had settings that were different than the "baseline". In that 
case, having a tool like this could have come in handy (although in that case, 
they probably needed something that was a bit more automated).

Darren

From: gptalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:gptalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On 
Behalf Of Andrew McHale
Sent: Monday, November 24, 2008 1:42 AM
To: gptalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [gptalk] Re: new GPO Compare product

Hi Darren,

As I'm new to GP I'm intrigued by the purpose of this tool when you state 
"quickly spot inconsistencies across GPOs"

Could you give an example of when you'd want to compare GPO's for 
inconsistencies? I thought the concept of multiple GPO's was to be different, 
with each one providing a different type of policy, that you can apply to 
different groups of individuals/assets depending on the needs.

Immediately the only time I can think you'd want to compare GPO's for 
inconsistencies is when you are recreating one due to corruption or major 
version change, or if you're looking for conflicting GPO's which set opposite 
values for the same policy.

Thanks

Andrew

P.S. Sorry if you excitedly opened this email expecting your first batch of 
feedback ;)


From: Darren Mar-Elia [mailto:darren@xxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: 21 November 2008 21:04
To: gptalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [gptalk] new GPO Compare product

Hey Folks-
Just wanted to let everyone know that today we shipped our new GPO Compare 
product 
(www.sdmsoftware.com/group_policy_compare<http://www.sdmsoftware.com/group_policy_compare>).
 This is something that many folks have asked for-a really nice standalone way 
to quickly spot inconsistencies across GPOs. If you have interest, check it out 
and let me know what you think! I'm all ears for feedback and already have some 
great ideas for the next version.

Thanks!

Darren

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