Group Policy API

 05/31/2018
 2 minutes to read

Purpose
Group Policy enables policy-based administration using Microsoft Active Directory
directory services. Group Policy uses directory services and security group membership
to provide flexibility and support extensive configuration information. Policy settings are
specified by an administrator. This is in contrast to profile settings, that are specified by
a user. Policy settings are created using the Microsoft Management Console (MMC)
snap-in for Group Policy.

Resultant Set of Policy (RSoP) is an enhanced Group Policy infrastructure that uses
Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) to enable administrators to determine
the policy settings that apply to, or will apply to, a user or computer.

Group Policy preferences enable administrators to configure, deploy, and manage

greater numbers of operating system and application settings while still allowing the
user to change their configuration.
Where applicable
All Windows-based applications can use the Group Policy infrastructure to configure
their policy settings.

New for Group Policy

 05/31/2018
 2 minutes to read

Group Policy preference extension is a new feature for Group Policy. For computers
running on Windows Vista and later operating systems, Group Policy preferences enable
administrators to configure, deploy, and manage greater numbers of operating system
and application settings. For more information about managing Windows with Group
Policy preferences, see About Group Policy Preferences. For information about
extending Group Policy preferences for custom applications, see Extending the
Applications Snap-in.
For computers running on Windows Vista and later operating systems,
The IGroupPolicyObject2interface was added to support editing of starter Group Policy
objects (GPOs). Starter GPOs, introduced in Group Policy for Windows Server 2008, are
collections of configured Administrative template (ADMX) policy settings that you can
use to create a live GPO.

The syntax for the ADMX files is defined in the ADMX schema.

For more information about the ADMX schema definitions, see ADMX Schema.