Windows Server 2008 R2 3

The Group Policy Manager in Server 2008 R2 has a new look and a new interface. There is also a new Power Plan preferences which allows to change a client's power plans. The new GPMC also allows customization of Internet Explorer 8 preferences. There are about 300 new policy settings, of which 140 are for IE8. Starter GPO's are now built-in so you don't have to download them manually.
2008 R2 allows disabling parsing of part of the GPO to improve performance. For example, if the policy only involves Computer Configuration settings, then you can disable User Configuration parsing.



The new group policy enabling windows also includes all the information in one screen, which is better than the old tabbed interface.



You can now also modify power options for both per-computer and per-user policies. When modifying power plans, the dialog looks exactly as if you're configuring it from an XP or a Vista/7 machine, so it's more intuitive.



For the power plan, we can specify item-level targeting which allows power plan options to target specific criteria, like "<256mb br="" or="" ram="" sp2="" unning="" vista="">


Power Plan preferences allow power saving features to be applied for the entire network, which allows substantial savings.

Under User Configurations, you can modify Internet Explorer preferences as well. You can enforce things like proxy through a familiar interface.



From the Starter GPOs folder, we can click on Create Starter GPOs which would create a set of Best Practices Starter GPOs for us.





EC is for standard computers, while SSLF is for extremely secure situations.