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Enforce Group Policy Inheritance in Windows Server 2008

By Codrut Nistor

Posted in How-to, Windows-server-2008-operating-systems

As it is understood that any network setup contains several group policy objects and each GPO is linked to multiple organizational units in order to provide best possible solution for the infrastructure. Moreover in a complex setup many configurations in a group policy might not be feasible for any particular organizational unit but it might be mandatory for another OU. To reduce complications while setting up the network in these cases administrators many times use inheritance features offered by the default nature of group policies. However sometimes this feature might also create some obstructions during the smooth functioning of the infrastructure and therefore administrators are forced to block the inheritance to solve the purpose. When inheritance is blocked on an organizational unit all the inherited group policy configurations are also blocked and therefore the organizational unit becomes isolated. In this case even if administrators want to apply some group policies from the parent objects they need to enforce inheritance to do so. If you want to enforce a group policy inheritance to any organizational unit on which inheritance has been blocked you are required to follow the steps given below:

1.       Use domain admin account logon to Windows server 2008 domain controller.

2.       Open Group Policy Management Console by going to start menu and going to Administrative Tools.

3.       Locate and right click on the group policy object that you want to enforce to the client objects.

4.       From the available menu click on Enforced to enforce the inheritance to all the OUs that have blocked inheritance.