Windows XP Clients with Active Directory - Follow up

[Josh]

All,

I already have a large environment that includes Windows
2000 Professional machines. But I want to add about 20 XP
Machines under new OUs with new Group policies. Is
upgrading my admin templates for these policies going to
affect my existing Windows 2000 professional machines and
their group policies???? Can I rename these templates to
new names so I can know they are for XP?

Also, will I have to manually add the new XP policies
every time I need to great a new group policy for XP
machines?

My main concern is adversely affecting my 2000
Professional machines.

Any input would be helpful.

Thanks.

 

[Laura E. Hunter \(MVP\)]

Your 2K clients will simply ignore any XP-specific GPO settings they come
across that they don't know how to process - it will not adversely affect
them. You don't need to create a seperate GPO for 2K & XP.

 

[Josh]

My concern is that the 2000 professional machines will get
added funcionality if they come across unrecognized XP
policy settings. These desktops are heavily locked down
and need to stay that way.

Ideally I would like to keep my 2000 adm templates and
also use XP admin templates when needed. Is this possible?

 

[Andrew Mitchell]

My concern is that the 2000 professional machines will get
added funcionality if they come across unrecognized XP
policy settings.

As was already mentioned, the 2000 machines will ignore any new XP specific
settings, so you have nothing to worry about there.

These desktops are heavily locked down
and need to stay that way.

They will.

Ideally I would like to keep my 2000 adm templates and
also use XP admin templates when needed. Is this possible?

Not that I am aware of, but it would make no difference even if it could be
done.

Andy.