Editor's Choice Article

10 Ways to Troubleshoot Group Policy
By Jmoody10

Group Policy is a solid tool and is very stable. Microsoft has made constant improvements to it since Windows 2000. It allows for the configuration and deployment of pretty much anything in your Active Directory environment. From deploying software to setting the default printer, it works. But when it doesnt, Microsoft has provided great guidelines and tools in order to troubleshoot.

Start with the Scope

1. The most common issue seen with Group Policy is a setting not being applied. The first place to check is the Scope Tab on the Group Policy Object (GPO). If you are configuring a computer side setting, make sure the GPO is linked to the Organization Unit (OU) that contains the computer. If the GPO configures a user side setting, it needs to be linked to the OU containing the correct user. Remember, GPOs cannot be linked to an OU that just contains security groups.

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Aces and Prodigies

At the end of last year, Experts Exchange added two new ranks -- Aces and Prodigies -- to the certificates (and t-shirts) that can be earned for answering questions and writing articles. Below is a list of all of the members holding those ranks as of January 1; we'll be mentioning the new awardees in our Milestones each issue.

Nata's Corner

My new favorite site: Bing's travel adviser that includes a feature that tells you whether to buy your ticket now or wait a few weeks.

The other half fell for it last week. He got an email notification that one of his colleagues had tweeted something to him -- a note about finding a photo of him. Since a very old photo of him (at right) had been posted online recently, he committed the worst of all Internet sins: he clicked the link, and sent out the same message to every one of his Twitter followers, who are probably all secretly very happy it happened to him.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not in the greatest of shape -- there are lots of things I probably should do that I don't -- but at least I don't have most of the problems Fitness magazine says high cell phone users could have. One thing they didn't list was the likelihood of being shunned if you're constantly checking (and responding to) text messages you get. Maybe it's just me, but there aren't very many things that are more rude than being in a conversation with someone who checks a text in mid-sentence and then starts thumbing away in response.

I used to think about buying the extended warranties offered on all kinds of things by electronics stores, but the other half told me about how a company he worked for sold them on all kinds of things, knowing that in almost every case, either a problem wouldn't be covered by a warranty (spilling coffee on a cash register) or it would be covered by another product the company sold -- a "maintenance agreement". So I wasn't all that surprised to see extended warranties on lifehacker's six tech myths, but the one about cables caught me a little by surprise.

If you haven't updated your Facebook privacy settings recently, you probably should. It's not so much that anything has changed with them, but the introduction of Graph Search does make it a lot easier for people to find you, especially since you can't opt out of being in the results. Here's a decent guide. Facebook has also made it possible for US and Canadian iPhone users to make phone calls for free, instead of using your minutes.

In Brief

26 Acts: The children of Newtown have a song to sing; it's available at Amazon and iTunes.

The first rule of social networking: If you're the star player on a team playing for a national championship, assume the worst, because the Internet always finds out, and always comes up with a t-shirt. Apropos of which, has anyone done a Facebook Graph search for "friends who have fake girlfriends"? Or you can always get your own.

Say it isn't so: Atari has filed for bankruptcy.

In requiem: Earl Weaver, who, in his day, would have out-tweeted Mark Cuban (who has his own issues); Stan Musial (sorry, but your editor can't wait for pitchers and catchers to report in a couple of weeks); Dear Abby (the columnist, not the column); after just over five years, LinkedIn Answers; and as of March 15, Windows Messenger.

On the other hand, Office 2013 launched yesterday.

Somewhere, Steve Jobs is giggling: Bill says his wife is wrong about whether the kids want iPhones.

"But I don't even like Mountain Dew..." Facebook has settled the lawsuit over using its users in "sponsored stories" without their permission.

More power: Twitter is still trying to figure out what to do about big huge events that lots of people are interested in. Where's the fail whale when we need it?

This wasn't in the Inaugural Address: The Obama Administration has announced that it won't build a Death Star. "Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?"

Lockpicking gets harder: Last Saturday, the rules that allowed unlocking your cell phone (in the US) expired. Now, you have to either buy a phone that's already unlocked (the iPhone 5 can be purchased that way) or get your carrier to unlock it (carriers usually will when your two-year-contract is done). (Thanks for the heads up, Jim!)

But they're new and shiny: Finally, someone listed nine useless gadgets that were at the CES a few weeks ago. We've gotta admit, though -- after watching our 19-month-old granddaughter use an iPad over the holidays, the digital potty has some merit.

See if you can follow this: Austrian Turks are unhappy about the LEGO Jabba's Palace.

Sports report: Microsoft's Steve Ballmer is one of the people who is trying to buy the NBA's Sacramento Kings -- so their new uniforms will be BSOD Blue and White, won't defend against anything and they'll randomly crash at least twice a week. The Sacramento folks are looking to Oracle's Larry Ellison, who has previously lost out in bids to buy not one but but two NBA franchises.

No news is news: CBS, which owns c|net, forbid its online tech news arm from giving one of its awards and publishing reviews of the the Dish Hopper because CBS is suing Dish.

Signs of the Apocalypse: Facebook is experimenting with a paywall for messaging. Outsourcing your job for fun and profit. A student was expelled from his university for helping them find security flaws in their systems (are you paying attention, Andrew?). The Top 20 Twitter accounts list.

Milestones

New Ace: ssaqibh has eared his Ace certificate in Microsoft Excel.

New Geniuses: Two Experts -- Subsun and Sembee2 -- have earned Genius certificates in Microsoft Exchange. ve3ofa is the fifth Genius in Windows 7, and feridun has become the first Genius in the Microsoft Dynamics topic area.

Milestones:

• Ray_Paseur has earned 14,000,000 points since joining Experts exchange.
• capricorn1 has earned 21,000,000 points -- the most by any EE member in a single topic area -- in Microsoft Access.
• CodeCruiser has earned 11,000,000 points in the VB.NET topic area.
• hanccocka reached the 9,000,000 point level in VMware.
• woolmilkporc has earned 7,000,000 points since joining Experts Exchange.
• slightwv has reached 6,000,000 points in Oracle.
• thinkpads_user is the 72nd EE member to reach 6,000,000 points.