PolicyMaker Registry Extension

Most desktop administrators quickly become familiar with the need to make adjustments to the Registry on remote computers. The free PolicyMaker Registry Extension is a true client side extension (CSE) to Group Policy, providing full registry management capability. The interface is simple and configurations are communicated to client computers through Group Policy. When Group Policy refreshes on a client computer, the registry is updated.

How does it compare to "Administrative Templates"?

Group Policy provides custom Registry modification as an afterthought to the Administrative Templates extension, which is designed to set predefined security settings based on text file templates. However these templates are difficult to create and are limited in capability.

Registry Wizard for settings import

PolicyMaker Registry Extension is designed to help administrators make custom changes as they might require. Instead of editing archaic template files one can simply launch the Registry Wizard and select one or more existing settings from the local computer, or another computer on the network.

Full control over tattooing

Custom settings deployed with administrative templates tattoo computers, leaving settings behind even when the policy is no longer applied. PolicyMaker eliminates tattooing with the standard option to automatically remove a setting if it is no longer being applied.

Per-setting filtering provides limitless flexibility

All PolicyMaker common features are available, including a graphical filtering system that allows an administrator to target individual settings within the scope of a Group Policy Object (GPO). This allows a small number of GPOs to manage a large number of users and computers, greatly improving Group Policy performance, flexibility and manageability.

GPMC Integration

The editing is performed from the GPMC (Group Policy Management Console), which also fully supports backup, restore, and import of all settings, as well as RSoP planning and logging modes.

You can download the tool for free here.