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After migrating from windows 2003 ent to windows 2008 R2, some group policy settings are missing.

Some time back, we migrated to windows 2008 R2 domain from windows 2003. Recently we noticed that some of the group policy settings are missing. For example personalization is missing under user policy. We are using central store for the policies.

In \\our domain\SYSVOL\domain.com\Policies\PolicyDefinitions (find the attached named 1), I can find the latest admx files and in the "en-us" folder under Policies, the adml files too. (find the attached named 2)

The old gpos are under \\our domain\SYSVOL\domain.com\Policies. (find the attached named 3)

Ben Hart

2008 does not fully support some of the GPO options that were in use by 2003. A listing of those I am unable to find.. it might be easier to recreate those missing GPO's now that you are fully upgraded.

Zacharia Kurian

ASKER

I tried recreating but still some settings, I am unable to find. For example the personalization option in User configuration>Administrative Templates>Control Panel , is missing. Could you check the attached files and see if the policies are correctly updated in correct path of the sysvol? I had a feeling that they are not properly stored in the correct path.

The attached file name "current policy path" shows the path were the current gpos are stored.

The attached file name "2008 Policy path" shows the actual 2008 gpos are stored.

May be I may have to update the policies again to the central store by copying the policies from a windows 7 client pc. If so, will I loose the current gpos? I have 50 of them. Will there be any issues in doing so? and most importantly what is the best way to upgrade? Does any one has faced such issue before like me?
current-policy-path.jpg
2008-Policy-path.jpg

Zacharia Kurian

ASKER

found something related to upgrade central store as per the below link. Will it solve the issues of missing options in the gpos?

http://myitforum.com/myitforumwp/2012/04/12/updating-group-policy-central-store/

Ben Hart

To my understanding.. the ADM and ADMX files are what a GPO uses to understand what settings it can manage. If those files are lost then the GPO persists.. it just loses the ability to manage those settings.

I would definitely try that link above and let us know if it helps. I upgraded our work domain from a functional level of 2003 to 2008 a few years ago.. but I have yet to see anything missing from it. We had probably 20 GPO;s back then and closer to 50 now.

Zacharia Kurian

ASKER

Thanks Ben. As per the attached screen shot in my 2nd post, both ADM and ADMX files still exists. When we had those 2003 ADs, the Windows Vista were introduced and in order to manage those clients, we had updated the gpo central store. When migrated to windows 2008 R2, I think we did not update the gpo central store. Now we do not have any windows Vista clients rather we have only windows 7 and a few windows XP SP2 clients.

I am waiting for your valuable feed back, since you too upgraded to windows 2008 R2 AD.

Zacharia Kurian

ASKER

If I update the gpo central store, will it affect the current ones? I mean will there be any issues with the already deployed gpos?

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Ben Hart

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Zacharia Kurian

ASKER

just updated the gpo central store and the missing parts are back to normal. Have to wait for 2 days to make sure that all is fine. Our network is quite large over 3 physical sites. Will update on the coming Sunday

Ben Hart

Nice! Yeah let me know.. Im interested to see if this resolved everything.

Zacharia Kurian

ASKER

Seems things are ok so far no issues raised. still waiting till Sunday or Monday.