Optimizing GPO Performance

Want to speed up the computer startup and user login process? Sometimes, it can be terribly slow to wait while login on or waiting for the server to boot up, especially when the client CSE are loading whatever GPO settings applied to them. Usually, we create single-purpose GPOs targeting at either computer setting or user setting only. If that's the case, you can disable either setting on the GPMC (Group Policy Management Console) to speed up the process.

Command to change Computer Time Zone

I was searching for the GPO setting to change the multiple computer time zone and I found none - not even in Administrative Template settings that supposed to set system registry.

I searched the Internet and found this "hidden command" - tzutil.

tzutil /g (To know current time zone)
tzutil /l (To get a list of all available time zones)
tzutil /s time_zone_ID (To change time zone)

To set to SG time: tzutil /s "Singapore Standard Time". Deploy it on startup script. It works on Win7 and W2K8 computers.

Windows System Resource Manager

Windows System Resource Manager (WSRM) can be used in 2 modes. Firstly, it allows application profiling, which helps identify the amount of resources (e.g. CPU, memory etc) that the applications consume.

Secondly, it can also operate in manage mode. WSRM uses its allocation policies to control how many resources applications can use on a server. If applications exceed the allocation, WSRM can be stop the applications from executing and make sure other applications can continue to operate. However, WSRM will not enforce the resource policies until the processor usage exceeds 70 percent.

WSRM can be assigned to manage 3 objects, namely processes, users and IIS application pools. WSRM is available for download for Windows 2003 and is available as a feature to be added in Windows 2008.