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Darren Mar-Elia

Darren Mar-Elia is president and CTO of SDM Software, a Group Policy solutions company. He has over 20 years combined experience in information technology and software development. He was senior director of product engineering at DesktopStandard (acquired by Microsoft), and before that, served as CTO for Windows management solutions at Quest Software. He was also a director of distributed systems at Charles Schwab & Co. and helped guide that company's use of Microsoft Windows technologies. Darren has written or contributed to 12 books on Windows management topics, is a Microsoft MVP for Group Policy, and is a contributing editor for Windows IT Pro. He also created the popular gpoguy.com website for information and utilities related to Group Policy.
Email: dmarelia@windowsitpro.com

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Author Articles

What's Wrong with Group Policy?

By Darren Mar-Elia, 06/14/2011

There are five Group Policy problems that Microsoft isn’t likely to address any time soon. Here’s how you can work around them.

Managing Internet Explorer with Group Policy

By Darren Mar-Elia, 01/23/2011

Learn how to best leverage three Group Policy areas so that you can obtain the control you need over IE on your desktops.

Managing AD in Bulk Using PowerShell

By Darren Mar-Elia, 10/11/2010

Whether you're searching for Active Directory objects that meet particular criteria or modifying objects in bulk, the Active Directory module for Windows PowerShell can help you ...

Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 Group Policy

By Darren Mar-Elia, 05/24/2010

The Group Policy improvements in Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 are evolutionary rather than revolutionary. With the possible exception of adding some PowerShell automation ...

PowerShell and Active Directory

By Darren Mar-Elia, 12/28/2009

The wait for full-fledged PowerShell Active Directory support is over. Microsoft has shipped an AD module and PowerShell Drive provider to make managing AD from PowerShell a snap.

Control Application Execution with SRP

By Darren Mar-Elia, 06/19/2009

Group Policy's software restriction policy (SRP) feature gives admins a powerful tool to control what code their users can run. Learn to use hash and path rules to set up ...

Deploying Office 2007 and Managing VPNs with Group Policy

By Darren Mar-Elia, 12/22/2008

Group Policy continues to be powerful—and difficult to work with. A few workarounds can help in using it to deploy Office 2007 and letting users connect to VPNs.

Securing Windows Desktops Using Group Policy

By Darren Mar-Elia, 10/29/2008

Check out how you can use Group Policy’s security configuration management features to protect your company’s data and systems.

Group Policy Results Screencast

By Darren Mar-Elia, 05/02/2008

View a five-minute screencast that shows how to run the Group Policy Results wizard and view the output.

Mastering RSoP

By Darren Mar-Elia, 04/28/2008

Discerning the effective policy settings for a given user or computer can be hard, especially in larger organizations. Resultant Set of Policies cuts through the confusion and ...

Group Policy Essentials No Sys Admin Can Live Without

By Darren Mar-Elia, 01/30/2008

Ensure that Group Policy lives up to its potential—here's a primer about how GPOs are processed, how permissions and filtering work, and basic troubleshooting.

Windows Vista and Server 2008 Group Policy Enhancements

By Darren Mar-Elia, 12/26/2007

New Vista and Server 2008 Group Policy features include the client service replacing system Winlogon, using NLA to improve slow-link detection, new settings for multiple local ...

Ask the Experts

By Darren Mar-Elia, 11/28/2007

Discover the reasons why client machines might not be processing Group Policy and learn about patching multiple images in a WIM file.

Troubleshooting a Group Policy Processing Error

By Darren Mar-Elia, 11/28/2007

Find out why client machines might be failing to process Group Policy.

Ask the Experts

By Darren Mar-Elia, 10/30/2007

Learn about problems associated with moving a software package to a new server, find out how to convert an ADM file to an ADMX file, and follow along as Mark Russinovich ...

Moving a Deployed Software Package to a New Server

By Darren Mar-Elia, 10/30/2007

Find out whether there's a way to move software packages to another server without triggering a reinstallation of the deployed applications.

The Group Policy Route to Office Deployment and Management

By Darren Mar-Elia, 03/28/2007

Use these two features of Group Policy to better manage Office—Group Policy Software Installation deploys Office and Office Administrative Templates locks down the behavior of ...

Group Policy Annoyances

By Darren Mar-Elia, 01/30/2007

Got Group Policy issues? Navigate Group Policy's troublesome areas with these solutions to common Group Policy problems.

Troubleshooting Group Policy

By Darren Mar-Elia, 08/29/2006

Successful Group Policy troubleshooting results from knowing where to look, enabling Group Policy logging, and taking advantage of available administrative tools.



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