A Practical Guide to Group Policy (GPO) — How It Works, Confirming Application, and Choosing Between GPO and Intune (archived 2026-08-30)

Abstract

Are you working in an AD environment without really knowing what "distributed via GPO" means? This article explains, from a practical standpoint, how Group Policy works and the LSDOU order of application, confirming that changes have taken effect with gpupdate and gpresult, choosing between GPO and Intune, and the pitfall of a customer's GPO silently changing how your app behaves. Archived version of https://comcomponent.com/en/blog/group-policy-practical-guide/, as published on 2026-08-30. The live article is maintained and may change after this date. First published 2026-08-01.