Anyway to copy GPO from one OU to another? 1

[jmcc]

1. I have OUs and subOUs on the W2K domain set up to control a few hundred client PCs.
2. In order to experiment with some settings, I also configure a test subOU that does not link to the currently effective GPO.
3. However, often times the setting I wish to experiment with is only a fractional difference from the production GPO.
4. So rather than create a new GPO in the test subOU and configure item by item to imitate the production GPO, is there a way I can just copy over the production GPO (Note: NOT create a link!), and then modify the copy so it suits my testing purposes?

MS documentation is not very convincing. They have webcasts that say you can't do that, yet their Knowledge Base article Q198722 talks about "copying and renaming GPO". I wonder how that copying was done to begin with?

Thank you

 

[pserko]

I copy all the time. Here is how to do it:
1)Open GPO you want to copy and select Properties, from properties you will see the id {754ED....}. write the beginning sequence down so you can locate it later.
2)Create new OU or go to existing OU. Create a new group policy object, name it. Do not make any changes to it.
3) Select the properties of the new GPO and note the id like above.
4) If you are on the DC go to systemroot and find SYSVOL. Open it and drill down until you find domain Policies. Open the folder and find the one you want to copy from. Open it and copy all contents of the folder.
5) Now find the new GPO in Policies folder and paste into it overwriting all existing files.
6) Now go back to the OU and edit the GPO they way you want.