Category: At least Windows Vista

This policy setting turns off the Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program. The Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program collects information about your hardware configuration and how you use our software and services to identify trends and usage patterns. Microsoft will not collect your name address or any other personally identifiable information. There are no surveys to complete no salesperson will call and you can continue working without interruption. It is simple and user-friendly. If you enable this policy setting all users are opted out of the Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program. If you disable this policy setting all users are opted into the Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program. If you do not configure this policy setting the administrator can use the Problem Reports and Solutions component in Control Panel to enable Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program for all users.

This policy setting turns off the active tests performed by the Windows Network Connectivity Status Indicator (NCSI) to determine whether your computer is connected to the Internet or to a more limited network. As part of determining the connectivity level NCSI performs one of two active tests: downloading a page from a dedicated Web server or making a DNS request for a dedicated address. If you enable this policy setting NCSI does not run either of the two active tests. This may reduce the ability of NCSI and of other components that use NCSI to determine Internet access. If you disable or do not configure this policy setting NCSI runs one of the two active tests.

This policy setting specifies whether active content links in trusted assistance content are rendered. By default the Help viewer renders trusted assistance content with active elements such as ShellExecute links and Guided Help links. If you enable this policy setting active content links are not rendered. The text is displayed but there are no clickable links for these elements. If you disable or do not configure this policy setting the default behavior applies (Help viewer renders trusted assistance content with active elements).

This policy setting determines when policies that assign wired network settings are updated. This policy setting affects all policies that use the wired network component of Group Policy such as those in Windows Settings -> Wired Network Policies. It overrides customized settings that the program implementing the wired network set when it was installed. If you enable this policy you can use the check boxes provided to change the options. If you disable this setting or do not configure it it has no effect on the system. The “Allow processing across a slow network connection” option updates the policies even when the update is being transmitted across a slow network connection such as a telephone line. Updates across slow connections can cause significant delays. The “Do not apply during periodic background processing” option prevents the system from updating affected policies in the background while the computer is in use. When background updates are disabled policy changes will not take effect until the next user logon or system restart. The “Process even if the Group Policy objects have not changed” option updates and reapplies the policies even if the policies have not changed. Many policy implementations specify that they are updated only when changed. However you might want to update unchanged policies such as reapplying a desired setting in case a user has changed it.

This policy setting specifies how long Group Policy should wait for network availability notifications during startup policy processing. If the startup policy processing is synchronous the computer is blocked until the network is available or the default wait time is reached. If the startup policy processing is asynchronous the computer is not blocked and policy processing will occur in the background. In either case configuring this policy setting overrides any system-computed wait times. If you enable this policy setting Group Policy will use this administratively configured maximum wait time and override any default or system-computed wait time. If you disable or do not configure this policy setting Group Policy will use the default wait time of 30 seconds on computers running Windows Vista operating system.

This policy setting prevents Local Group Policy Objects (Local GPOs) from being applied. By default the policy settings in Local GPOs are applied before any domain-based GPO policy settings. These policy settings can apply to both users and the local computer. You can disable the processing and application of all Local GPOs to ensure that only domain-based GPOs are applied. If you enable this policy setting the system does not process and apply any Local GPOs. If you disable or do not configure this policy setting Local GPOs continue to be applied. Note: For computers joined to a domain it is strongly recommended that you only configure this policy setting in domain-based GPOs. This policy setting will be ignored on computers that are joined to a workgroup.

This policy directs Group Policy processing to skip processing any client side extension that requires synchronous processing (that is whether computers wait for the network to be fully initialized during computer startup and user logon) when a slow network connection is detected. If you enable this policy setting when a slow network connection is detected Group Policy processing will always run in an asynchronous manner. Client computers will not wait for the network to be fully initialized at startup and logon. Existing users will be logged on using cached credentials which will result in shorter logon times. Group Policy will be applied in the background after the network becomes available. Note that because this is a background refresh extensions requiring synchronous processing such as Software Installation Folder Redirectionand Drive Maps preference extension will not be applied. Note: There are two conditions that will cause Group Policy to be processed synchronously even if this policy setting is enabled:1 – At the first computer startup after the client computer has joined the domain. 2 – If the policy setting “Always wait for the network at computer startup and logon” is enabled. If you disable or do not configure this policy setting detecting a slow network connection will not affect whether Group Policy processing will be synchronous or asynchronous.