OVERVIEW

This 4-day course is intended to provide you with the knowledge and skills to plan, implement, maintain, and troubleshoot an Active Directory Group Policy environment.

AUDIENCE PROFILE

This course is aimed at IT professionals who are responsible for implementing, supporting, and troubleshooting on-premises compute environments based around Active Directory and Group Policy.

By completing this course, you’ll be able to:

• Remotely manage devices
• Implement Local Group Policy Processing
• Implement Active Directory
• Plan and implement OUs
• Plan Group Policy
• Implement a Group Policy infrastructure
• Understand, configure, and troubleshoot Group Policy Processing
• Manage apps with Group Policy
• Manage user settings with Group Policy
• Implement and manage preferences
• Configure security with Group Policy
• Maintain Windows 11 with Group Policy
• Manage and Troubleshoot GPOs

Module 1: Implementing local and remote management

In this module, students learn about the skills and tools needed to manage Windows 11 and Windows Server locally – both using the administrative consoles and the command line.

Module outline:

• Lesson 1: Overview of Windows 11 and Windows Server local management tools
• Lesson 2: Implementing command line administration
• Lesson 3: Implementing remote administration
• Lesson 4: Using Windows Admin Center
• Lab: Implementing local and remote management

Module 2: What is Local Group Policy?

In this module, students learn about the fundamentals of local GPO processing, and how to configure standalone workstations using local GPO.

Module outline:

• Lesson 1: Overview of Local Group Policies
• Lesson 2: Local Group Policy Processing
• Lab: Implementing local Group Policy

Module 3: Administering Active Directory

In this module, students are introduced to AD DS, learning about sites, subnets, replication, and domain controllers.

Module outline:

• Lesson 1: Overview of Local Group Policies
• Lesson 2: Domain controllers
• Lesson 3: How AD DS replication works
• Lesson 4: What are sites and subnets?
• Lesson 5: Configuring and monitoring AD DS replication
• Lab: Implementing and administering AD DS

Module 4: Working with OUs

In this module, students learn what an OU is, and how to create them. They will also learn how to migrate users, groups, and devices to the appropriate OU – both during domain join and after.

Module outline:

• Lesson 1: Planning OUs
• Lesson 2: Implementing OUs
• Lab: Creating and managing OUs

Module 5: Overview of Group Policy

In this module, students learn about the management tools available for administering GPOs. They’ll also learn about the difference between settings and preferences, client-side extensions, and administrative templates.

Module outline:

• Lesson 1: Introducing Group Policy
• Lesson 2: Group Policy administration fundamentals
• Lab: Creating a GPO

Module 6: Implementing a Group Policy infrastructure

In this module, students learn about how to implement an appropriate Group Policy infrastructure.

Module outline:

• Lesson 1: Managing GPOs
• Lesson 2: Implementing administrative templates
• Lab: Implementing a Group Policy infrastructure

Module 7: Managing Group Policy Processing

In this module, students learn about the default behavior for GPO processing and how to change that behavior. They’ll learn to use the various GPO management tools.  

Module outline:

• Lesson 1: How GPOs are processed
• Lesson 2: Changing GPO processing behavior
• Lab: Managing Group Policy Processing

Module 8: Managing apps

In this module, students learn how to deploy and update apps using GPO. They’ll also learn how to restrict which apps users can run by implementing AppLocker

Module outline:

• Lesson 1: Managing Win32 apps
• Lesson 2: Managing UWP apps
• Lab: Managing apps

Module 9: Managing user settings

In this module, students learn how best to configure the user environment. This will involve implementing UEV, folder redirection, offline file access, and UAC.

Module outline:

• Lesson 1: Managing user profiles
• Lesson 2: Synchronizing user data with Folder Redirection
• Lesson 3: Implementing scripts
• Lab: Managing user settings

Module 10: Managing preferences

In this module, students learn about the difference between settings and preferences, and how to configure the latter.  

Module outline:

• Lesson 1: Implementing preferences
• Lesson 2: Using item-level targeting
• Lab: Managing preferences

Module 11: Configuring security

In this module, students learn about the core security features of Windows 11. They’ll also learn how to configure those settings with Group Policy

Module outline:

• Lesson 1: Managing user security
• Lesson 2: Deploying certificates
• Lesson 3: Implementing Windows 11 security
• Lab: Configuring security

Module 12: Maintaining Windows 11

In this module, students learn about keeping Windows 11 up to date. They will also learn how to implement Desired State Configuration.

Module outline:

• Lesson 1: Overview of Windows Update
• Lesson 2: Updating Windows

Module 13: Troubleshooting GPOs

In this module, students learn about how to maintain GPOs and, when needed, how to resolve problems with the application of GPOs on their users’ devices.

Module outline:

• Lesson 1: Group Policy processing review
• Lesson 2: Identifying and resolving Group Policy application issues
• Lab: Managing and Troubleshooting GPOs