Starter GPO explained


With Windows Server 2008 (Codename Longhorn) you will notice a new container called "Starter GPOs" inside the GPMC (version 2.0 - BTW this version will also be available as a separate download for Windows Vista with SP1).



This new container can hold what I would call "templates" for creating new GPO's - with the limitation that only Administrative Template settings are available. When creating new GPO's you can choose to use a Starter GPO as the source (read: template) - which makes it easy and fast to create multiple GPO's with the same baseline configuration.

But, the very cool thing is that you can now "export" those GPO templates (Starter GPO's) to a Cabinet file (.CAB) and then import into another environment - completely independent of the source domain/forest! So, you can create the PERFECT Starter GPO and then bring it around the world, share it on the Internet (if legal?), deploy it on all systems you can get a hold on etc. etc.

When you 'enable' Starter GPO's in the domain for the first time, a folder called "StarterGPOs" is created inside the SYSVOL folder (\\domain.com\SYSVOL\domain.com\StarterGPOs) - this is where all the "magic" is done... For each new Starter GPO you create, you will see a new folder below this StarterGPOs folder - each will have a unique GUID (just like normal group policies). So, when you create a new GPO with a Starter GPO as source a nice and simple COPY process is actually performed - the subfolders and files from the Starter GPO's GUID folder is just copied into the \\domain.com\SYSVOL\domain.com\Policies\[SomeNewGUID] folder - and wupti, you are ready to deploy...

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