Policy Maker beta and web discussions

  • Thread starter Thread starter Eric Voskuil
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Eric Voskuil

Policy Maker is rapidly approaching beta - set for October 14th.

In conjunction with this private program, we are holding open web forums
covering a range of related topics. The second such discussion is scheduled
for next Tuesday, Oct. 7th at 11:00 AM EST. These discussions are meant to
give program participants and the general public a chance to learn more
about the product and the details of Group Policy processing in general.
Signup is online at:

http://www.autoprof.com/policy/demo.html

While we are no longer soliciting beta signup online, experienced Group
Policy administrators who wish to participate in this private program may
contact me directly. The program is expected to run to the end of November.
The primary expection is that participants provide detailed and timely
feedback on issues they encounter.

For those who are not yet familiar with Policy Maker...

------------------------------

It's a line of products that add more server and client side extensions to
the Group Policy system. If you know how to use Group Policy, there is
practically nothing to learn. The first release (Profile Maker Professional)
gives you the ability to configure:

Drive Maps
Shared Printers
IP Printers
Outlook/Exchange (MAPI) Profiles
Registry settings (not ADM)
Ini file settings
Shortcuts (all types/locations)
Files (copy/remove)
Folders (create/remove/purge)

....and use rich application plug-ins to customize user preferences (not ADM)
in various applications including all versions of IE and Office - all as
policies or preferences (you decide!).

The Policy Maker extensions work completely within the Group Policy
extension model, and implement the full set of extension capabilities and
standard conventions, on Windows 2000, XP and 2003 Server. This includes
RSoP Logging and Planning modes and much more.

------------------------------

We are excited about the chance to help Group Policy finally live up to its
full promise. Although Group Policy is an extensibile system, admins have
waited far too long for the extensions. The above list is a small but
important group, to which we will be adding substantially in the coming
year. When coupled with new dedicated server-side management products like
GPMC, Policy Maker will make Group Policy the complete system for
configuration management that its architects envisioned.

--

Eric Voskuil
AutoProf

http://www.autoprof.com/pdf/policymaker.pdf
 
so,let me ask ,from what i was told and im sure if this is correct,this is
suppossed to take the place of ADUC, if not let me know thanks
 
Actually no - the Active Directory Users and Computers (ADUC) snap-in is
loosely a central point of management for GPOs, however with Group Policy
Management Console (GPMC), Microsoft has provided a true GPO-centric system
of for managing your policies. ADUC is alive and well as far as I know, and
GPMC is a welcome addition. It sounds like you are thinking of GPMC.

Policy Maker is a set of new components that you configure inside of the
Group Policy Object Editor, just as you would configure software
installation policy for example. GPOs are still managed using existing
tools, it's what you can *do* with a GPO that is significantly expanded by
Policy Maker.

Eric Voskuil
AutoProf

http://www.autoprof.com/policy
 
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