JSI Tip 7630. GPMC issues 'The permissions for this GPO in the SYSVOL folder are inconsistent with those in Active Directory'?

The GPMC (Group Policy Management Console) issues one of the following errors when you attempt to open the Default Domain Policy, or the Default Domain Controllers Policy, in a Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003 domain:

If you have permission to modify the security settings on the GPOs:

The permissions for this GPO in the SYSVOL folder are inconsistent with those in Active Directory.
It is recommended that these permissions be consistent. To change the permissions in SYSVOL to those in Active Directory, click OK.

If you DO NOT have permission to modify the security settings on the GPOs:

The permissions for this GPO in the SYSVOL folder are inconsistent with those in Active Directory.
It is recommended that these permissions be consistent. Contact an administrator who has rights to modify security on this GPO.

The above behavior will occur if the ACL (Access Control List) on the SYSVOL portion of the GPO is set to inherit parent folder permissions.

NOTE: You must apply the latest service pack to a Windows 2000-based computer.

If you have permissions to modify the security settings on these default GPOs, pressing OK will reset the ACLs to make them consistent, removing the inheritance attribute in the SYSVOL folder.

NOTE: See You receive 'The permissions for this GPO in the SYSVOL folder are inconsistent with those in Active Directory' when you try to view a GPO on Windows Server 2003 joined to a Windows 2000 domain?