Group Policy - preferences

Microsoft's Group Policy preferences includes the ability to control and configure a great deal more, from a central point, than regular Group Policies can. Some preference settings actually overlap with “real” policy settings, but in that case you have a choice between a policy and a preference. So, you might ask: what’s the difference? Well, a “policy” is something you enforce and which cannot be changed by the user – a “preference” is a setting you would prefer the user takes on, but the user can still change it.

Preference can be set to apply only once and from that point in time the user is free to do whatever he/she wants – or to apply every time the Group Policy is refreshed (default ever 90 to 120 minutes on clients).

Preferences can be used to amongst other things, map network drives, manage environmental variables, registry entries, creating folders/files and short cuts.

For a more detailed information: Windowssecurity.com

How to access Group Policy - preferences:
Windows Server 2008 server or a single Windows Vista SP1 with the downloadable, “Remote Server Administration Tools” (RSAT) toolkit installed. RSAT will include GPMC version 2 and updated versions of the administrative tools we had in the “Administration Tools Pack” for earlier Windows Server systems.


Enabling Group Policy, preferences on Client Workstations

To enable client workstations to use Group Policy preferences you need to install Group Policy Preference Client Side Extensions on the workstations.

Group Policy Preference Client Side Extensions are now available for download.

The GPP CSEs are included in Windows Server 2008 RTM, but can now be downloaded for: Windows XP SP2+ (32/64 bit) Windows Server 2003 SP1+ (32/64 bit) Windows Vista RTM+ (32/64 bit)
These are the links:
GPP CSEs for Windows Vista (KB943729)
GPP CSEs for Windows Vista x64 Edition (KB943729)
GPP CSEs for Windows Server 2003 (KB943729)
GPP CSEs for Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition (KB943729)
GPP CSEs for Windows XP (KB943729)
GPP CSEs for Windows XP x64 Edition (KB943729)

Additional information including installing the extension can be obtained from the following blog: heidelbergit