Group Policy Loopback Processing on Windows Server 2012

Every now and then (especially in a VDI situation), I need to enable Group Policy Loopback Processing.  This Group Policy setting can do a lot of things; I usually use it to allow me to create Group Policy Objects that contain User Configuration settings that only apply when the users log into a certain subset of computers (such as my VDI desktops).  When that setting is enabled, it basically instructs windows to process its computer GPOs again at user logon, so as to catch any User Configurations that are specified.

This is a setting that I configure once for each VDI deployment that I do, and I always need to look up where it is (who bothers to memorize where specific settings are amongst the thousands of options!?).  No problem, that's literally what google was made for.  So, a quick search for Group Policy Loopback Processing is in order, which brings me to a technet article about Windows Server 2003 that calls the setting simply Loopback processing.  Well, Loopback Processing has obviously been around for quite a while, so that's fine... except that the setting isn't where the article says that it is any more.

So, back to google.  The next result is for Windows Server 2008, where the setting was renamed to User Group Policy loopback processing mode.  Ok, so Microsoft decided to give it a more verbose name back at Server 2008, no problem... except that it's still not there on my Windows 2012 Domain Controller.

Back to google, once again.  The third result is finally Windows Server 2012 specific, although it doesn't specifically say so.  What it does reveal (in addition to an excellent description of the details of what Loopback Processing is doing and how to configure it for various use cases), is the name of the setting in Windows 2012: Configure user Group Policy loopback processing mode.

So, the full path to configure that setting on a Windows 2012 domain is Computer Configuration\Policies\Administrative Templates\System\Group Policy\Configure user Group Policy loopback processing mode

 Next time that I have to turn this setting on, hopefully I'll remember to look here rather than digging through the top three results of a google search.  Hopefully.

Comments

  1. Jeff GJune 13, 2017 at 8:42 AM

    Server 2016 has it in the same place as 2012, FYI.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jason ColemanJune 13, 2017 at 8:48 AM

      Thanks - I was wondering about that but didn't have a 2016 server available to look at and a cursory search didn't reveal anything definitive.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Sorry guys, I've been getting a lot of spam recently, so I've had to turn on comment moderation. I'll do my best to moderate them swiftly after they're submitted,

Popular posts from this blog

Clone a Standard vSwitch from one ESXi Host to Another

One of my customers is standardizing the configurations on their HP C7000 enclosures (they've been set up at various sites by various administrators with varying involvement from the architecture team).  As such, we need to stand up some temporary resources so that we can take down the main enclosure for reconfiguration.  That's fine, we can easily ship a smaller enclosure to each site for temporary compute resources.  Some of the sites are using Standard vSwitches, so we need to be able to quickly copy the networking configuration over from their existing blades to these new, slightly different blades.  As I see it, we had 2 good options: 1) Capture a Host Profile with the desired vSwitch configuration.  Delete every other component of the Host Profile so that only the networking section is applied; design the new ESXi hosts so that the vSwitches'll work with the old vmnic-to-vswitch configurations. 2) Write a script to clone the vSwitch from ones ESXi host to another.
Read more

PowerShell Sorting by Multiple Columns

PowerShell's Sort-Object cmdlet is super useful, especially when preparing output for human consumption.  A few people have found my blog while looking for more information about its use, specifically while looking for how to sort by multiple columns (well, properties, technically).  I've never done so (much less written about it), so I hope those folks found answers elsewhere.  But, it got me curious... and it turns out that it's really easy. The Technet article on Sort-Object has the answer directly spelled out: just use commas to create a list of properties to sort by (in order to precedence).  Let's look at some examples!  First, prepare a variable with some good sortable data: $myData = get-eventlog System -newest 25 And then we can get to sorting!  Say you want to sort primarily by EntryType (Warning, Information, Error) and then by Source.  Easy-peasy: $myData | sort EntryType,Source How about if you want it to be in descending order?  Yeah, there&
Read more

Deleting Orphaned (AKA Zombie) VMDK Files

A problem that most Virtualization Administrators need to deal with is Orphaned VMDK files (or Zombie VMDK files, as some people call them).  These are Virtual Machine hard drive files that are just hanging out, taking up storage, but are attached to no VMs.  How can this happen?  Well, the most common way is when an administrator needs to delete a VMDK but isn't quite ready to commit... so, after pressing "remove", they select "remove from virtual machine" rather than "remove and delete files".  The intent is always good: "I want to be able to restore this if it turns out to be necessary... so I'll just come back and delete it next week if nothing breaks!"  But, of course, next week something else happens and the file doesn't get deleted.  After a little while, it turns into "which files did I rename, again?" and nothing seems to happen. So, how do you deal with these orphaned files?  Well, a few years ago I found a scrip
Read more