Group Policy provides an effective and efficient way to manage computer and user settings. The real power of Group Policy is that you can manage settings for hundreds or thousands of users and computers as easily as you can manage settings for a single user or computer. Group Policy makes this possible by providing the necessary structures to seamlessly manage user and computer settings anywhere in the enterprise.

It is important to understand how Group Policy works in different environments. Regardless of whether you work with computers in workgroups, domains, or a combination of the two, you can use Group Policy to efficiently manage settings. There are, however, advantages to using Group Policy in a domain setting. Specifically, in Active Directory domains, Group Policy is extended to help you better manage computer security, wireless networking, software installation, and remote installation services.