Use Group Policy functionality in Windows Vista

Group Policy is an important Microsoft technology for managing Windows computers that deploy Active Directory services. However, Group Policy in Windows Vista and soon, in "Longhorn" (the Windows Server codename) has been greatly improved, and of course there are changes in how to manage these platforms.

In previous Microsoft Windows versions, the important tool to troubleshoot Group Policy processing is the "userenv.log" file. This file is created by the Userenv.dll file (part of the Group Policy core engine), and the administrator can use them to know all that is happening on the system when the user logs in. computer.

If you search in the database of Knowledge Base articles on the Microsoft TechNet website, you can find a lot of information on how to enable the logging of Userenv.dll, as well as the translation of log files. this out. However, in Windows Vista, Userenv.dll is no longer configured to create the userenv.log file. So how can you troubleshoot Group Policy related issues on this new platform?

The simple answer is to use the Event Viewer function! In Windows Vista, Group Policy events are recorded in two channels:

Group Policy Operational Log : The events listed here and the event handled by Group Policy are similar to those stored in the userenv.log file as before.

* System Log : Events with "Group Policy" sources are listed here; and some events related to the success of failure of Group Policy.

In addition, there is another way in Windows Vista that you can use to troubleshoot Group Policy problems, which is to enable debugging (debug) functionality of the Group Policy Object Editor (Gpedit.msc ).

When you enable debug logging, Gpedit.msc will create a GpEdit.log file to resolve issues related to the generated ADMX files. To enable the logging function debug Gpedit.msc, create a REG_DWORD registry value:

HKLMSoftwareMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersionWinlogonGPEditDebugLevel

For debugging purposes, you set the value 0x10002 to this data string, and as a result, the GpEdit.log file will be created in the% SystemRoot% debugusermode directory on the local computer.