Identifying Group Policy Client-Side Extensions (216357)

SUMMARY

Group Policy architecture includes both server and client-side components. The server component includes the user interface that an administrator can use to configure a unique policy. When Group Policy is applied to a user or computer, the client component interprets the policy and makes the appropriate changes to the environment. These are known as Group Policy client-side extensions. A Globally Unique Identifier (GUID), a 128-bit number identifying a given object, identifies the extension to the operating system. As Group Policy is processed, the Winlogon process passes the list of Group Policy Objects (GPOs) that must be processed to each Group Policy client-side extension. The extension uses the list to process the appropriate policy when applicable.

When viewing event log entries and log files recorded by Group Policy and these client-side extensions, an administrator may need to identify the extension by its GUID.