Active Administrator 8.7 - User Guide

Managing GPO backups

Managing GPO backups

Another feature unique to Active Administrator® is the ability to back up an entire Group Policy object (GPO) to a folder structure from where it can be restored if needed. This feature provides a high level of fault tolerance and recoverability that was never before possible with any other tool.

Topics 

•	Backing up Group Policy objects

•	Scheduling a GPO backup

•	Scheduling a purge of GPO backups

•	Comparing Group Policy backups

•	Restoring a Group Policy object

To manage GPO backups

1	Select Group Policy | GPO Backup.

2	Use the tool bar to manage GPO backups.

 

Table 85. GPO backup tool bar

Option	Description
Refresh	Refresh the display.
Backup Group Policy	Back up group policies. See Backing up Group Policy objects.
Restore Group Policy	Restore selected group policies. See Restoring a Group Policy object.
Remove	Delete a selected backup.
Show Settings	Display a selected backed up Group Policy in a report. To print the report, right-click in the window, and choose Print.
Compare	Compare two or more selected Group Policy backups. See Comparing Group Policy backups.
Schedule	Schedule a GPO backup. See Scheduling a GPO backup,
Schedule Purge	Schedule a purge of GPO backups. See .

Backing up Group Policy objects

Backing up Group Policy objects

Back up your Group Policy objects before making any changes. You can restore the backup if a problem arises. You also can create a schedule to back up all the GPOs in selected domains. See Scheduling a GPO backup.

To back up Group Policy objects

1	Select Group Policy | GPO Backup.

2	Click Backup Group Policy.

3	Click Add GPOs.

4	Select a domain.

5	If you do not see the desired domain, click Add Forest and locate the forest with the desired domain.

6	Select the Group Policy to back up, and click Add.

7	Repeat for additional group policies in the selected domain.

8

Click OK.

9	Select the Group Policy, and click Backup.

Scheduling a GPO backup

Scheduling a GPO backup

You can create a schedule to back up all the GPOs in selected domains.

To schedule a GPO backup

1	Select Group Policy | GPO Backup.

2	Click Schedule.

3	To enable scheduling, select the check box.

4	To create the schedule, click Set Schedule, select the schedule type, and click OK.

5	To add domains to the backup schedule, click Add, select the domains, and click OK.

 

NOTE: All the GPOs in the domain are backed up.

6

Click OK.

Scheduling a purge of GPO backups

Scheduling a purge of GPO backups

You can create a schedule to purge GPO backups older than N days.

To schedule a purge of GPO backups

1	Select Group Policy | GPO Backup | Schedule Purge.

2	Optionally, select Enable scheduling for purging GPO backups.

3	Enter the number of days of backups to keep.

4	Optionally, click Update to make changes to the default schedule.

5	Select the schedule type, set the related date and time for the schedule, and click OK.

6	Click Save.