Using Group Policy to Deploy an SCW-Developed Security Policy
Find out how to use Group Policy to deploy an SCW-developed security policy to many servers.
November 27, 2006
How can I use Group Policy to deploy a Security Configuration Wizard (SCW)?developed security policy to many servers?
SCW security policies are XML files that define settings for several different areas of Windows configuration. Group Policy doesn't support some of these areas (e.g., Microsoft IIS), therefore you can't simply open a Group Policy Object (GPO) and specify an SCW security policy. For example, because there's no Group Policy extension for IIS, Group Policy can't configure IIS settings that are defined in an SCW security policy. However, SCW allows you to convert the sections of an SCW security policy that Group Policy does support to a GPO template. To do so, create an SCW security policy, then use the SCW command-line tool (scwcmd.exe) and its "transform" function to create a GPO and configure the Security Settings, IP Security Policy, and Windows Firewall sections of the GPO according to the specified SCW security policy. For example, the command
scwcmd transform /p:c:MySCWPolicy .xml /g:MyNewGPO
transforms a SCW security policy called MySCWPolicy.xml to a GPO named MyNewGPO. Then you link the GPO to an organizational unit (OU) that targets the desired servers. You must be a member of a privileged group (i.e., Domain Admins or Enterprise Admins) or have the delegated ability to create GPOs. You can find more information about SCW in " Windows 2003 SP1 Security Configuration Wizard," InstantDoc ID 45550.
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