[gptalk] Re: Determining group associated with a GPO

  • From: "Darren Mar-Elia" <darren@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <gptalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2008 08:38:28 -0700

Ian -

How about using RSOP to determine which apps have been deployed to a given
user or computer? RSOP does not need the user to be logged on.

 

Darren

 

From: gptalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:gptalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Nelson, Jamie
Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2008 8:28 AM
To: gptalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [gptalk] Re: Determining group associated with a GPO

 

I'll have to dig for it. Kind of busy at the moment but I'll see if I can
find it before the end of the day. J

 

Jamie Nelson | Operations Consultant | BI&T Infrastructure-Intel | Devon
Energy Corporation | Work: 405.552.8054 | Mobile: 405.200.8088 |
http://www.dvn.com <http://www.dvn.com/> 

 

From: gptalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:gptalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Northwood, Ian
Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2008 10:21 AM
To: gptalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [gptalk] Re: Determining group associated with a GPO

 

Hey, Jamie, that'd be neat, thanks. Could you upload it to Senduit.com and
paste the resulting link into a reply, or is it available for d/l elsewhere?

 

Ian

 

  _____  

From: gptalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:gptalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Nelson, Jamie
Sent: 08 October 2008 16:18
To: gptalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [gptalk] Re: Determining group associated with a GPO

Ian,

 

You can manually load each registry hive and search it, then unload it when
you're done.I think I actually have a VBScript class I wrote to do such a
thing.

 

Jamie Nelson | Operations Consultant | BI&T Infrastructure-Intel | Devon
Energy Corporation | Work: 405.552.8054 | Mobile: 405.200.8088 |
http://www.dvn.com <http://www.dvn.com/> 

 

From: gptalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:gptalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Northwood, Ian
Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2008 9:29 AM
To: gptalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [gptalk] Re: Determining group associated with a GPO

 

QAD - Quick And Dirty :)

 

The issue with querying the registry on the target is, as I mentioned, that
it's only exposed for the currently logged-in user, e.g.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Group
Policy\AppMgmt\[ProductCode]. We need to find out which packages got pushed
onto a machine for all users, as the client's users do hot-desking. This
means that a machine will get, for example, MS Project delivered to it if an
appropriately permissioned user logs in to that machine. Then, when an audit
agent runs (these things generally do a simple scan for known EXEs), it
might identify 3 times as many installations as the client has licenses for.
It fails to take account of hot-desk installs. This is the entire purpose of
the script - to make sense of this mess!

 

So, we walk
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\Manag
ed\[UserSIDs]\Installer\Products\[ProductCodes], matching it against
'HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\[ProductCodes].
Any which appear in the latter but not the former are assumed to be local
installs (i.e. not pushed by GPO) and flagged as invalid, and possibly
force-uninstalled. The managed stuff's Product Code is queried, the GPO
found, the security-filtered group divined, then the user SID obtained
earlier tested for membership of that group. Anomalies are then flagged in
the report file produced (as we can't easily force-uninstal GPO-pushed apps
in a timely manner).

 

Easy! LOL

 

PS

I've just been told I will probably need to handle an user/group/machine
exception list. Great...I'll save that for v2, I think...

 

 

  _____  

From: gptalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:gptalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Darren Mar-Elia
Sent: 08 October 2008 14:58
To: gptalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [gptalk] Re: Determining group associated with a GPO

Ian-

So, if I follow what you are doing, you are querying AD for all
packageRegistration objects, querying their product codes and using that as
a key to associate package to registry entry on the clients? Then you are
determining what GPO that packageRegistration object is in by parsing the DN
of that that object? 

 

What is your 'QAD script'? Anyway, it sounds like you have found a solution.
There is probably a better solution by using the registry metadata on the
client to determine which GPO a package is part of and whether the client is
getting that GPO, but you seem to have a way forward, so I won't mess with
it J

 

Darren

 

From: gptalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:gptalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Northwood, Ian
Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2008 4:29 AM
To: gptalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [gptalk] Re: Determining group associated with a GPO

 

The registry contains that info for the currently logged-in user only. Our
requirement is for the script to walk the domain (or a selected OU) and
interrogate each machine for its installed software, including what's been
pushed out by GP. For locally installed software, we'll kick off a remote
removal. For GPO-pushed stuff, all we can do is determine if user is a
member of the group assocaited with the GPO. This latter requirement is why
we need to find out which group is filtered on the GPO.

 

Anyway, I've arrived at a solution:

 

- query the AD for the ProductCode and get the container name(s), plural
because there may be AD orphans containing the code. I'm researching a
method to determine which GPO is the 'live' one.

- parse that container name for the GPO's container name (is there a
'method' to get that? I'm just looking for '{' then '}' and using what's in
between!)

- get the SecurityDescriptor details for the GPO

- test if the trustee name returned is a group and, if so, add it to a
dictionary

- loop through the dictionary and test the account's membership of that
group.

 

It's a mess at the moment but at least I know I can get the info I need. Now
all I need to do is shoe-horn my QAD script into the actual script which
will do the work.

 

  _____  

From: gptalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:gptalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Darren Mar-Elia
Sent: 02 October 2008 16:29
To: gptalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [gptalk] Re: Determining group associated with a GPO

If all you know is the product code, you will need to query every
packageRegistration object in AD to look for that product code, and then
from there you can derive the GPO name/id.  But I wonder if you really have
to do that. I seem to remember that somewhere in the registry metadata on
the client that you can make the link between product code and GPO. You
should investigate that before going down the path of querying AD. I would
check for you if I had a machine with a deployed package handy.

 

Darren

 

From: gptalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:gptalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Northwood, Ian
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2008 7:51 AM
To: gptalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [gptalk] Re: Determining group associated with a GPO

 

Thanks, Darren, you're probably right.

 

I realise my error now. I actually don't know the GPO name (nor therefore
its ID). So, to re-phrase my question: 

 

If I know the ProductCode (in all its forms) what query can I use to get the
group associated with the GPO containing that ProductCode? I appreciate that
there may be duplicate records but I can handle that as a separate issue.

 

Ian

 

  _____  

From: gptalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:gptalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Darren Mar-Elia
Sent: 02 October 2008 15:42
To: gptalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [gptalk] Re: Determining group associated with a GPO

Ian,

You probably missed the response we sent to this before you had
re-subscribed. You can use the GPMC APIs to query the security on a GPO.
This makes it very easy to get at that info. Let me know if that did not
answer your question.

 

Darren

 

 

From: gptalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:gptalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Northwood, Ian
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2008 7:34 AM
To: gptalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [gptalk] Determining group associated with a GPO

 

Folks,

 

As part of a licensing audit, I have been asked to build a script to
interrogate installed software on machines. Easy enough. However, we want to
be able to determine which apps were installed per-user by Group Policy and
whether the user concerned is in the group associated with the package.

 

How do I query AD to determine the group associated with the GPO, given that
I know:

 

- all the users who have had software pushed to them having logged into the
machine (I loop through
'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\Mana
ged\[User's SIDs]\Installer\Products\[PackedProductCode])

- the GPO name and its GUID

- the ProductCode, its packed form and its octet/byte array form

 

The idea is that we produce a list of accounts who appear in the registry as
having had 'Package X' installed but who are not in the associated group.

 


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