RSoP vs secedit vs gpupdate vs... ? 2

[JFoushee]

Hi. I've got some basic background of group policy, but reviewing the following four utilities look almost identical:

- Resultant Set of Policy (RSoP)
- gpresult.exe
- Security Configuration and Analysis
- secedit.exe

Can anyone explain - at a high-level - what the difference is?

 

[kmkeshav]

RSoP - You can simulate Group Policies using this. This means, you can simulate new Group Policy settings before you actually deploy.

GPRESULT - Displays the Group Policies and settings currently applied to a user/computer.

Security Configuration and Analysis - Used to analyse and configure local computer security. You can use Group Policy to deploy security settings to your domain computers.

SECEDIT - This is a equivalent tool to Security Configuration and Analysis, using this you can automate security configuration tasks.

Hope this helps.

-Keshav

 

[JFoushee]

Thanks, this helps!

 

[tfg13]

It should be noted, that RSOP, and GPRESULT, and only going to help in determining what policies are applied. You won't be able to do any changes.

SECEDIT is useful, if you want to apply settings to multiple "stand-alone (not in a domain)" computers. You can write a script, or a .bat to help you configure them.

Security Configuration and Analysis will give you some settings that local security policy/settings does not. You can seriously hose up a server with this utility, so take extreme caution when using it (specifically configuring). There are several "pre-made" templates that come with the software that you can use to either configure, or base your own settings on (by analyzing and going through the settings determining what would break if you set it). All in all, a very powerful tool.

 

[JFoushee]

Awesome... I think I got it...

RSoP: GUI-based tool to review policy settings
gpresult: Command-line tool to review policy settings
Security Configuration and Analysis: GUI-based tool to review/edit policy settings
secedit: Command-line tool to review/edit policy settings