I suppose this is rather late in the game for me to write a little post about the Group Policy Management Console but here it is nonetheless.  I usually work with SBS (Small Business Server) machines where the GPMC is part of the traditional bundle (as of SBS 2003 r2?) and so I am very used to having it available to me when I am working in Active Directory or with Group Policies.

That being said, it’s not included by default in the regular Server 2003 (I know: ancient).  It’s very useful however because it allows you to clearly view which elements exist in your policy (rather than having to slog through all of the elements to locate those that look like they have been changed).  It’s not perfect as it would be preferable to edit directly in the console and not have to open the usual (slogging) editor.  So it goes.

Regardless you can get the installation package here.  (Be forewarned that this download will fail in Opera and Firefox so you’ll have to dust off IE.)

Once you get the installer on your server, remember to click the “Unblock” button in the Properties dialog or Windows will throw an error when you attempt to run it.

Have fun with that.