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Here are some Excel spreadsheets offered by Microsoft that contain the Group Policy settings.

Group Policy Settings Reference  – Windows Server 2003

This spreadsheet lists Group Policy settings described in Administrative Template (.adm) files and Security Settings that shipped with Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1. This includes all Administrative Template policy settings supported on the following operating systems: Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Windows XP Professional with SP2 or earlier service packs, and Microsoft Windows 2000 with Service Pack 4 or earlier service packs. In addition, this spreadsheet includes the following categories of security policy settings: Account Policies (Password Policy, Account Lockout Policy, and Kerberos Policy), Local Policies (Audit Policy, User Rights Assignment, and Security Options), Event Log, Restricted Groups, System Services, Registry, and File System policy settings. Note: This does not include security settings that exist outside of the Security Settings extension (scecli.dll), such as Wireless Network extension, Public Key Policies, or Software Restriction Policies.

The spreadsheet includes separate worksheets for each of the .adm files and the security policy settings that shipped in Windows XP SP2 , a consolidated worksheet for easy searching, and an Update History worksheet that lists policy settings that have been added since the Windows Server 2003 operating systems were released. Using column filters, you can easily filter the information in the spreadsheet by operating system, component, or machine/user configuration. You can also search for information by using text or keywords.

System Requirements:

- Supported Operating Systems: Windows 2000; Windows Server 2003; Windows XP
- Excel 2000 and later

Click here to download this reference.

Group Policy Settings Reference  – Windows Vista

System Requirements:

Group Policy Settings Reference – Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista SP1

Server Core is a minimal server installation option for computers running on the Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system. Server Core provides a low-maintenance server environment with limited functionality. Command-line tools and other management tools (both local and remote) can be used to manage a machine running Server Core. For a list of command-line tools, see Command-line reference A-Z.

To activate your Windows Server 2008, you can login to the server console and type the following shell command and press Enter in the Windows shell:

cscript C:\windows\system32\slmgr.vbs -ato

Interested in a FREE Active Directory Webinar? Join me on June 4, 2009 from 10:00am – 11:00am PDT. I will cover the following topics in my presentation 5 Challenges in AD Management and How to Eliminate Them.

• Password and User management
• Provisioning and deprovisioning – consistency through centralized management
• How to successfully perform granular restores of AD objects
• Active monitoring of managed and unmanaged changes
• Better management of security through delegation of roles

Here’s the link to register for this FREE Webinar.

Microsoft has created a Stock Keeping Unit (SKU) line-up where each SKU is a superset of the previous SKU. This means that each higher edition SKU will have every feature lower edition SKUs have. Microsoft will be  focusing on two primary editions of Windows 7:

1. Windows 7 Home Premium
2. Windows 7 Professional

Microsoft will continue to offer a few targeted SKUs for customers with specialized needs:

- For price-sensitive customers with small notebook PCs, some OEMs will offer Windows 7 Starter.
- For customers in emerging markets, Microsoft will make Windows 7 Home Basic available.

Businesses:

Businesses have two recommended choices.

1. Windows 7 Professional
2. Windows 7 Enterprise

Windows 7 Professional is recommended for small businesses and Windows 7 Enterprise is recommended for mid- and large-sized businesses that have a Software Assurance Agreement with Microsoft.

Consumers:
Microsoft recommends Windows 7 Home Premium for most customers and Windows 7 Professional for customers who want additional features and functionality useful for small business activities.

SKUs for Windows 7:

The SKU lineup for Windows 7 is:

Windows 7 Starter
Windows 7 Home Basic (in Emerging Markets only)
Windows 7 Home Premium
Windows 7 Professional
Windows 7 Enterprise
Windows 7 Ultimate

The features in each version of Windows 7 build upon the one before it. As customers move up from one SKU to the next, from Windows 7 Starter through Windows 7 Ultimate, they gain additional features and lose none.

Creating a Survey List is easy but unfortunately configuring it for anonymous access and making sure anonymous users cannot view the results is not that simple. For intranet scenarios you typically won’t be configuring anonymous access but if you have an Internet-facing Web site that you may have a need to configure anonymous access. For example, for those of you who run User Group Web sites hosted on SharePoint servers, this technique will surely come handy. In this article I will show you how to properly configure a Survey List for anonymous access and to prevent anonymous readers from viewing the results of the survey.

I use a User Group template for my Windows Networking User Group site. To join the User Group people click on a link on the home page and start the survey which asks them a few simple questions and then at the end it takes them to a “Thank You” page. Here’s the technique I use to configure my survey.

1. Create a survey (e.g. MonthlyMeeting). Do not check the option to display the survey on the Quick Launch. We will use a different and better method to display the survey on the Quick Launch.

2. Save the survey as a template if you want to use the survey again. In my case, people take the survey, I look at the results and save the survey (export to a spreadsheet). Then I delete all the entries in the survey, change the name of the survey if necessary, and the counter starts counting from 1 again.

3. On the Survey Settings page click Permissions for this survey link.

4. By default the permissions are inherited from the site. We want to use unique permissions. Click Actions, Edit Permissions, and then to set unique permissions click OK.

5. You’ll see a Settings Menu appear. Click Settings, Anonymous Access.

6. Check the boxes Add items and View items. Are the options all grayed out? Keep reading!

NOTE: This is where it gets a little tricky. You may notice that all the boxes are grayed out and you don’t have the ability to check or uncheck the boxes, as shown in the above graphic. This is so not cool. What you’ll discover that SharePoint has a (cough….cough) “feature” which prevents you from making changes to the settings on this screen. However, if you do things in a different order you can work around this “feature.” Makes no sense? Right. Just keep reading.

7. Go to the survey’s Settings page and click on Advanced settings link.

8. Set the permissions to All responses under Read Access, as shown below. Don’t panic! This is temporary. We just need to workaround SharePoint’s “feature.” We will reverse this action in a minute.

9. Now you should be able to check the boxes in step 6 that were grayed out. Go to the survey’s Settings page, click Permissions for this survey. Click Settings, Anonymous Access and check the boxes Add items and View items, as shown below.

10. Now go back to Settings for the survey (use breadcrumbs) and click Advanced settings. Configure the permissions as below.

Read access: Only their own

Edit item: Only their own

Allow items from this survey to appear in search results?: No

11. Now we’ve got your permissions exactly the way we wanted. If you were to go back and look at the Anonymous Access permissions in step they are back to what you saw in step 6…..grayed out with the options you selected in step 9 no longer selected. What? It makes no sense? Good! That’s why you are reading this blog and not looking for a solution on TechNet. Undocumented features are usually not posted on Microsoft’s Web sites. Seriously folks……it makes no sense but it works. Your survey will work properly at this stage and anonymous users will be able to take the survey but will not see the survey results.

Bonus Tip

To make things a bit nicer, it’s a good idea to point users to a “Thank You” page rather than sending them to the results page, which is the default. Here’s how.

1. Create a basic Web page and call it something like ThankYou.aspx.

2. Add some text like “Thank you for responding to the survey. Your input is appreciated.”

3. Go to Site Actions, Site Settings, Modify Navigation.

4. Under the Survey folder create a link. If you don’t have a Survey folder you can create a heading without a URL.

5. Add the link to the survey in the URL box. Let’s assume the URL to your survey is http://www.sitpug.com/Lists/RSVP/overview.aspx. You want to point users to a Thank You page that resides in the SitePages library. You need to add the following code at the end of your URL: ?Source=http://www.sitpug.com/SitePages/ThankYou.aspx?PageView=Shared&ContentEditorPopUp=True. So the entire URL in the link will look like this: http://www.sitpug.com/Lists/RSVP/overview.aspx?Source=http://www.sitpug.com/SitePages/ThankYouRSVP.aspx?PageView=Shared&ContentEditorPopUp=True, without any spaces.

6. If you prefer that people go directly to the survey itself rather than the Overview page that has all the details about the number of responses and graphical summary, enter the following code when you create the link: http://www.sitpug.com/Lists/RSVP/NewForm.aspx?Source=http://www.sitpug.com/SitePages/ThankYouRSVP.aspx?PageView%3DShared. Notice this URL is pointing to the NewForm.aspx page rather than the overview.aspx page.

Test the survey as an anonymous user to make sure it works the way you want.

Last Update: November 7, 2012