When would you use a starter GPO?

The most common situation in which you would use a starter GPO is when you would otherwise be creating multiple similar GPOs from scratch to deal with slight differences between departments or Organizational Units. For example, if you wish to deploy a GPO to set Start menu and Taskbar restrictions throughout your Active Directory network, but you need to make slight changes for different OUs, the starter GPO would be a nice fit. You would build the starter GPO containing the bulk of the settings that will apply to all users, then build GPOs from that starter GPO for each OU, customizing as necessary.

Now, the starter GPO is not the only solution for such a situation. For example, the GPMC has always allowed you to build a GPO and then copy it, at which point it is a simple matter to change the settings that must be customized for a given OU. However, the starter GPO makes it a little more obvious (for example, to other group policy administrators) that you are using it as a template. It also makes creating new GPOs somewhat easier, because you don't have to guess about which settings might be OU-specific as you may need to do using the copy-and-modify method. (The copy-and-modify technique should remain in your back pocket for situations that require more than Administrative Templates settings.)

Another situation where the starter GPO could be a handy solution is when you are building a GPO for possible deployment in more than one forest. As I'll discuss in future posts, you can easily save a starter GPO in a cabinet file, which you can copy wherever you like for future importing into the GPMC.

See recent blog posts...

How do Starter GPOs Work? Part 2

How do Starter GPOs Work? Part 1

Tips and Tricks on Rolling Out Windows Server 2008