70-294 QOTD for June 4th

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Ed is a junior network technician for a Windows Server 2003 AD network. He is responsible for administrating the Group Policy settings for several OUs including the Sales OU, the Clerical OU, and the Mechanics OU. The domain structure is very large with a number of child domains below each parent domain and several domain trees in the AD forest. The current group policy settings have been applied to Sales and Clerical for quite sometime. Ed was just given responsibility over the Mechanics OU and has linked the same GPO applied to Sales and Clerical to Mechanics. Now, he’s getting multiple calls from users in the Mechanics OU saying that their computer start ups and logons have slowed down dramatically. What could be the problem?

A. Ed failed to take into consideration the fact that the Mechanics OU is in a child domain of the parent domain that Sales and Clerical inhabit. Although it is technically possible to link a GPO across domain and even forest boundaries, it causes the type of slowdown the users in Mechanics are describing. Ed should unlink this GPO from their OU, duplicate the GPO and export it to the child domain where the Mechanics OU is located and apply it there.
B. Ed failed to take into consideration that the Mechanics OU is on a different subnet in the domain than Sales and Clerical and that Active Directory replication is being slowed down since it has to transverse one or more routers. Ed should disconnect the link to the Mechanics OU and export it to a Domain Controller on the Mechanics OU subnet, then reapply it from there.
C. This situation has nothing to do with Ed’s application of the GPO link. Another administrator has configured a GPO link for the Mechanics OU at the site level and the GPO settings affecting password policies are conflicting with the ones set by Ed at the OU level. The result of the conflict is a slowdown in authentication for that OU. Ed should call the other administrator and develop a plan to eliminate the conflict.
D. This situation has nothing to do with Ed’s application of the GPO link. Another administrator has configured a GPO link for the Mechanics OU at the domain level and the GPO settings affecting password policies are conflicting with the ones set by Ed at the OU level. The result of the conflict is a slowdown in authentication for that OU. Ed should enable the setting at the Mechanics OU for “Block Policy Inheritance” which will prevent the GPO at the domain level from being inherited at the OU level and eliminate the conflict.

Select one answer only. Answer later.

 

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Today I reckon A

 

A looks about right as it's the simplest but C and D are possible because it's someone else's fault

A for me.

 

Ill go for A please

 

The correct answer is indeed A. While you can link GPOs across domain or forest boundries, it does cause the type of error that was described. B is incorrect because it's a bogus answer. Crossing subnets via routers would have no affect on the GPOs. While C and D at least seem a bit plausable, they would only have an effect if the GPO at a higher level were specifically aimed at managing password policies and the result shouldn't be experienced as a slowdown in authentication. If anything, there would just be a noticable difference between the actual experience the users in Mechanics have at their computers versus the intent of the GPO applied by our fictional Ed.

Good one, gang. You're all far too smart for me. This does fairly closely mimic the degree of difficulty experienced on the real thing. I'll post a bonus weekend question a bit later on. Have a good weekend, folks.