What You Need to Know About Troubleshooting Group Policy to Pass a Microsoft Exam

Group Policy Objects are an inevitable part of working in a Windows-based free exam papers(http://www.examshots.com )environment. But understanding how to use them in your network design is only one part of the puzzle. For network admins, understanding how to troubleshoot group policies is crucial, not only to run an efficient network but also to successfully achieve Microsoft certifications. In this article, David Leaver offers some tips for being prepared for troubleshooting group policies when taking Microsoft exams.

If you work in the world of IT as a network admin, in a Windows-based domain environment, you are bound to have come across group policies (commonly referred to as GPOs or Group Policy Objects). When it comes to carrying out any network based task, whether it is mapping a network drive, changing security settings or installing software on multiple computers, GPOs are an excellent tool for the job. As a result, having good knowledge of group policy is essential for the day-to-day work of a network admin, and Microsoft make sure it plays a major part in both their core and design networking series of Microsoft certification exams. This includes setting up new group policies, choosing the appropriate level to assign them, as well as highlighting the integrated nature of group policy and an active directory domain controller. However, one of the most important parts of the group policy learning process is troubleshooting when they don't work. In fact, you can often spend more time troubleshooting a Microsoft group policy than you do creating it in the first place. So in order to make sure that the troubleshooting element of your GPO studies is covered, here is a summarized checklist of what you need to know for your Microsoft exams.
Understand group policy

As with any Microsoft exam preparation, it is important that you get hands-on practice to back up your book knowledge. It is common to get simulation questions in the microsoft exam papers(http://www.examshots.com/vendor/Microsoft-1.html )that require you to setup a group policy and apply it at the right level to the right computers or users. I would highly recommend setting up a test server to practice on that allows you to get hands on practice with a domain controller and in this case the group policy management console (GPMC). This allows you to follow the practical exercises in your Microsoft press books so that you get confident in using the GPMC. Improve skills such as creating and linking group policies, and familiarize yourself with the hundreds of possible settings you can apply. Also make sure you understand the processing order that group policy follows. The natural order is to apply computer polices first, and apply user policies second (which makes sense as you turn on your computer, and the computer policies apply themselves, then as a user you logon and the user policies apply). This may sound like common sense, but it is a common mistake to apply a computer policy to an organizational unit (OU) of users! Also, when we discuss features like loopback processing later, this will be a key point to remember.

Now although group policy is covered in great detail in the Microsoft networking series, what actually makes up a group policy object isn't. However, when it comes to understanding some of the troubleshooting elements of group policy, it pays to know a bit more detail.

In short, group policy objects (GPOs) are made up of two parts: the group policy container (GPC) and the group policy template (GPT). The GPC lives in the group policy container within the Active directory and acts as the reference point for the GPT, which stores the actual template settings for the applied GPO. The GPT lives on the domain controller with the GPC and resides in the SYSVOL folder. The GPC and the GPT are represented together with a unique id, called a GUID (global unique identifier), and they also share a version number, which is incremented every time a change is made to the free CompTIA exam papers(http://www.examshots.com/vendor/CompTIA-4.html ) as a whole. You'll see why this extra level of detail is important when we talk about troubleshooting synchronization and replication.