export/import local group policy?

[markd]

Hi,

I'd like to apply local group policy to a number of machines that are not
domain members. Specifically, I have all domain members getting updates
through WSUS and now I need to implement the same configuration on a number
of stand-alone servers. I'd prefer the local group policy method to manually
setting the registry values.

Is there a way to easily export the local group policy settings from one
machine and import it into another?

[John John - MVP]

You can configure the policies to your liking on one machine then copy
the whole %Systemroot%\System32\GroupPolicy folder to the other
machines. This is ok for machines in a workgroup or for stand alones.

John

[Darren Mar-Elia (Group Policy MVP)]

Mark-
Easy is relative :). There is no way to export a local GPO. What you can
do, fairly roughly, is copy the contents of c:\windows\system32\grouppolicy
from one machine to another. However, its not completely that cut and dry.
First off, security policies are not represented in the local file system
and therefore can't be copied (you would have to export security settings
using a tool like secedit.exe). Secondly, just copying an existing local
GPO's files from one machine to the next may not guarantee that it actually
processes, because the local GPO's current version number, held in those
files, would need to be incremented from the existing version on the target
to ensure that the changed local GPO was detected.

The second possibility is here:
http://www.sdmsoftware.com/group_policy_scripting, which lets you use
Powershell to write scripts that can modify domain or local GPO settings
(same caveat around local security policy applies however). Disclaimer--it’s
a commercial product and its my company, but I did want to mention it as we
do have some folks using it for what you've asked :-).

Let me know if you have any questions on this.

Darren

Darren Mar-Elia
Group Policy Resource Site: http://www.gpoguy.com
Group Policy Blog: http://www.sdmsoftware.com/blog
Group Policy on Twitter:
http://www.twitter.com/grouppolicyguy
***********
Need to compare GPO settings? Get the SDM Software GPO Compare tool--
http://www.sdmsoftware.com/group_policy_compare
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"markd" <ma...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:E4DC2090-B550-45BC...@microsoft.com...

[Pete]

What about using export in the Local Security Policy editor and then apply
it to new machines with the secedit command (secedit /configure /db
secedit.sdb /cfg C:\Security\Templates\LSPsettings.inf /overwrite) ?