Group Policy: Item-Level Targeting
KB ID 0001654 Problem Yesterday I wrote a post about Deploying a ‘Mapped’ Drive to a couple of users using Group Policy. This received a comment that was basically ‘Why not simply use Client Targeting?’ To be fair that’s a good point, I was using a Group Policy Preference and they can be specifically targeted. So here’s how to do that. Solution If you do not already have one, create a group for your...
Group Policy Preferences and Client Side Extensions
Group Policy Preferences KB ID 0000389 Problem Group Policy Preferences (GPP) first came in with Server 2008 and were enhanced for Server 2008 R2, To be able to apply them to older Windows clients, you need to install the “Client side Extensions” (CSE), You can either script this, deploy with a group policy, or if you have WSUS you can send out the update that way. From windows 7 onwards they are already installed....
Stop Edge Hijacking PDF Files
KB ID 0001395 Problem This question appeared in my inbox today, ‘Edge’ has a nasty habit of assigning itself the default PDF reader, particularly after a round of updates! Solution First I went and had a look at my old Experts Exchange Buddy Ramesh’s site (www.winhelponline.com) who had done the heavy lifting and worked out the registry keys; Note: I’m only concerned with .pdf files, if you want to block .htm...
Windows – Users Home Drives Renamed to ‘My Documents’
KB ID 0000783 Problem This problem was originally identified by Microsoft here. But none of the fixes recommended by them were really practical in my clients situation. I did read one promising post that said, if you disable offline file caching by GPO this problem would cease. However this particular client HAD TO have that feature enabled (for Ranger Offline). Someone else had written a PowerShell script that ran through and...
Deploy ODBC Settings via Group Policy
KB ID 0000805 Problem I’ve briefly mentioned this before when I wrote about Group Policy Preferences so when I had to do this on-site this week, I jumped straight into the group policy management console, and found that because my ODBC connection was using SQL authentication (with the SQL sa account), this would NOT WORK, (it only works with Windows authentication and even then it needs a tweak). If you are using SQL...