[gptalk] Re: new GPO Compare product
- From: "Darren Mar-Elia" <darren@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <gptalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2008 13:18:56 -0800
Good feedback Jerry! We're looking at the next version supporting a CLI so
that you can essentially do what you want-compare a single GPO against
others and report on those differences-your request is a variation on that
theme that we could support fairly easily.
Thanks again,
Darren
From: gptalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:gptalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Cruz, Jerome L
Sent: Monday, November 24, 2008 1:09 PM
To: gptalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [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). 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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