Group Policy Preferences: Enabled/Disable settings

Have you ever noticed this:

Yeah I know. Everybody has seen the power options from Group policy preferences. But have another look. You will see that all the options are colored with green.

What this means is that this settings is Active. You can turn on and off this options by using F5 F6 F7 and F8.

  • F5 activates all the options you see. Turning every option Green
  • F6 activates only the chosen setting. Turning it green (you can use TAB to choose or click it with your mouse)
  • F7 Disables only the chosen setting. Turning the color to red/white
  • F8 Disables all the settings. Turning every option into red/white

When the color is red/white the setting will not come into the play. In other words, you disable the option completely.

Here all the settings disabled so you can see the difference.

Another interesting thing is that regional settings are red/white by default. Thereby these settings will not be turned on until you use the F5 or F6 key. I wonder how many people do not know this. It was new to me at least.

You can also right click the setting you have made and view the xml to verify that the option is really on.

Update MS Doc: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc754299.aspx

  • This post was copied verbatim from an article I found a while back. It was reposted here for my reference.