When Microsoft introduced Group Policy Preferences with Windows Server 2008, they gave sys admins the ability to easily do a bunch of common tasks (adding domain users to local groups, mapping drives, creating shortcuts, etc) in Group Policy without having to write scripts. I’m a fan of scripting, but I still see that as a good thing!

Yesterday TechNet Edge released a video about Group Policy Preferences, which I’d recommend you check out. It starts off slow, but then talks about how you can manage the scope of different preferences, so within the same Group Policy Object you could map a particular drive for everyone using a PC under the policy scope, plus additional ones just for users in particular security groups. This means that you can have a relatively complex arrangement of drive mappings for all the users you manage all in the same policy. 🙂

If you’ve not come across TechNet Edge before and you’re an IT Pro managing Windows systems, head over there now and see what you’ve been missing.

In case you missed them, James put some posts on this very blog a little while ago about using Group Policy Preferences to add domain users to local groups and mapping network drives.