1 00:00:03,090 --> 00:00:07,950 So let's shift gears now and talk about IEEE Maintenance Policy, which I mentioned at the beginning 2 00:00:07,950 --> 00:00:11,100 is being deprecated or has been deprecated by Microsoft. 3 00:00:11,970 --> 00:00:16,630 If you're running either Windows eight or above or you have a system running IEEE ten and above. 4 00:00:16,800 --> 00:00:18,960 So that includes Windows seven Systems. 5 00:00:19,860 --> 00:00:25,170 Now, as I mentioned, IEEE maintenance policy has been around since the beginning and it has had issues 6 00:00:25,170 --> 00:00:25,890 in the past. 7 00:00:26,790 --> 00:00:32,040 So what I want to do is talk a little bit about how it works, but then also dig into sort of how you 8 00:00:32,040 --> 00:00:32,940 can get rid of it. 9 00:00:33,840 --> 00:00:39,750 So IEEE Maintenance Policy is per user only, just like GP preference policies, and it does allow you 10 00:00:39,750 --> 00:00:44,600 to configure many of the same things you can configure in GP preferences internet settings. 11 00:00:45,480 --> 00:00:50,550 And what's interesting is that there are some settings in IEEE maintenance policy that you can't configure 12 00:00:50,550 --> 00:00:53,070 in any of the two other areas that I've talked about. 13 00:00:53,940 --> 00:00:57,900 Now, the way IEEE maintenance behavior works is when you're in the policy. 14 00:00:58,830 --> 00:01:03,000 Let's say I want to configure proxy settings through the connection dialog. 15 00:01:03,870 --> 00:01:08,550 What it does is it actually imports the settings from the machine you're editing policy on. 16 00:01:09,420 --> 00:01:14,640 So when you click on that Modify Settings button you see on the screen, it reads the connection settings 17 00:01:14,640 --> 00:01:17,550 configuration from your current IP browser settings. 18 00:01:18,450 --> 00:01:22,190 And essentially imports those into the group policy object. 19 00:01:23,060 --> 00:01:27,950 And this has been problematic in the past because if you go to a different machine with a different 20 00:01:27,950 --> 00:01:34,880 configuration for, let's say, the configuration settings in IEEE and you click on that modify settings 21 00:01:34,880 --> 00:01:38,420 button it, then imports those new settings into your GPO. 22 00:01:39,260 --> 00:01:44,930 Now that was improved upon in later versions of IEEE Maintenance Policy, but there's still some versions 23 00:01:44,930 --> 00:01:51,260 where that behavior can exist, and IEEE maintenance settings kind of behave in a kind of quasi preference 24 00:01:51,260 --> 00:01:52,130 policy way. 25 00:01:53,030 --> 00:01:58,010 So some of the settings will behave like preferences and the user will be able to modify them. 26 00:01:58,820 --> 00:02:01,610 An example of that would be like home page settings. 27 00:02:02,570 --> 00:02:06,710 Some settings will behave like policies and the user won't be able to modify them. 28 00:02:06,950 --> 00:02:08,900 But it will look like they can modify them. 29 00:02:09,770 --> 00:02:14,630 So in other words, the interface won't be grayed out, but they'll be able to, and they'll be able 30 00:02:14,630 --> 00:02:16,190 to make a change to the setting. 31 00:02:17,030 --> 00:02:22,160 But the next time they go in there or the next time policy is processed, the setting will be revert 32 00:02:22,160 --> 00:02:23,840 back to what is in the GPO. 33 00:02:24,680 --> 00:02:29,750 So it's kind of a sort of a mixed bag with respect to how it controls the users interface. 34 00:02:30,620 --> 00:02:36,230 And this is another reason why I think Microsoft has gotten rid of this policy area going forward, 35 00:02:36,500 --> 00:02:40,340 because it is kind of implemented in a sort of half, half baked sort of way. 36 00:02:41,240 --> 00:02:46,550 So, you know, I think if I give any advice about IEEE maintenance policy, I would certainly not make 37 00:02:46,550 --> 00:02:52,610 any new IEEE maintenance policy going forward, given that it's going to be removed whenever you upgrade 38 00:02:52,610 --> 00:02:54,230 your browser past E9. 39 00:02:55,130 --> 00:03:00,770 So any time you're in IEEE ten, the settings in IEEE maintenance policy will no longer impact the browser. 40 00:03:01,660 --> 00:03:03,640 No longer control the browser. 41 00:03:04,580 --> 00:03:07,310 So the best way to deal with this is to remove it. 42 00:03:08,210 --> 00:03:14,060 The probably the easiest way to do that is to simply unlink the GPOs that contain IEEE maintenance policy. 43 00:03:14,950 --> 00:03:19,660 Assuming that's all that they contain or that the other things that they contain aren't important to 44 00:03:19,660 --> 00:03:20,050 you. 45 00:03:20,920 --> 00:03:23,470 So not all settings are going to be undone. 46 00:03:23,530 --> 00:03:24,550 However, when you. 47 00:03:25,410 --> 00:03:27,810 Undo that or unlink that policy. 48 00:03:28,680 --> 00:03:34,080 So you'll probably end up needing to use either GP preferences or admin templates to take over those 49 00:03:34,080 --> 00:03:35,610 settings that are not undone. 50 00:03:36,480 --> 00:03:41,460 And that's where you can run into challenges because if you have a setting, an IP maintenance policy 51 00:03:41,460 --> 00:03:46,680 that's not available in either of those other two areas, you'll run into issues were essentially you 52 00:03:46,680 --> 00:03:49,410 don't have the ability to remove those settings easily. 53 00:03:50,280 --> 00:03:54,360 Now you can reset all the settings within IEEE Maintenance Policy. 54 00:03:55,260 --> 00:04:00,780 So let's say you have a GPO that has IP maintenance policy in it, but it also might have some admin 55 00:04:00,780 --> 00:04:04,530 templates settings, some other settings that you need. 56 00:04:05,460 --> 00:04:10,770 So you don't want to unlink that GPO, but you can right click on the IEEE maintenance node and select 57 00:04:10,770 --> 00:04:15,750 the reset browser's settings option, and that will essentially empty out the IEEE maintenance settings 58 00:04:15,750 --> 00:04:16,980 within that GPO. 59 00:04:17,850 --> 00:04:23,220 So that gives you another way of sort of removing or at least having the IEEE maintenance settings no 60 00:04:23,220 --> 00:04:27,330 longer apply, and then you can go and do your cleanup.