Windows Group Policy Editor Guide

Windows group policy editor is a tool that is included with Windows 2000 and Windows XP pro. This is a powerful MMC (Microsoft Management Console) snap in that allows you to configure and customize many of the security, networking, and user interface features of Windows. These customizations are achieved through a convenient user interface and without this they would have to be modified through complicated registry edits, third party tweaking software, or not at all.

Let’s start by locating the snap in. From the run command on the start menu type “gpedit.msc” and click ok. Now you should have a window that looks like this:

You can navigate through this by either expanding the folders on the left and highlighting your selection, or by double clicking an item in the window to get to the sub-categories.

In this example you will notice that the folder menu is expanded to “User Configuration >Administrative Components >Windows Components >Windows Explorer”. Highlighting that folder displays all the configurable options for that selection in the window to the right. Highlighting one of those options, in this example “Maximum number of recent documents”, will bring up an explanation of the option in the left side of the window. To configure the option you may either double click on the option, or click on properties at the top of the explanation. These actions will bring up the dialog box where the changes will be made.

Here you can see that there are two tabs at the top of the dialog box. The first one, “Setting”, is where the changes are made, and the second one, “Explain”, is the same explanation you get in the window view. To make a change, check enabled, and enter any requested information. Here I changed the number of recent documents displayed in the start menu from the default fifteen to five.

The dialog boxes will vary from setting to setting, but they will be pretty much self explanatory. One thing to note is that by enabling some options you are actually disabling some functions. Microsoft provides an extensive help system that accompanies the Group Policy Editor, to get more info on a setting just right click a folder or policy and click on help.