Wrapping up our series on finding technical information quickly, we are going to explore the Group Policy Search service a little bit more. With over 3400 policy settings that can be configured in multiple ways, finding (and understanding) that perfect setting can be a challenge. Because you will likely be hunting these settings in Group Policy Management Console (GPMC), we are going to add a search option that links us back to the Group Policy Search service.

Creating the Script

Launch PowerShell ISE and paste these two lines into script pane:

$Search = Read-Host "What are you looking for?"
start "http://gpsearch.azurewebsites.net/default.aspx?search=$Search"

Save the script.

Searching in GPMC

Launch MMC.exe and add in Group Policy Management as a Selected snap-in. Left click on any OU, then choose the Action tab and New Taskpad View. Once the wizard has launched, choose your style (either Vertical or Horizontal) and press Next twice. On the name screen, enter a unique name (ex: Group Policy OU Taskpad) and a description. Select Next and Finish.

The New Task Wizard should now be started. Press Next. Choose the Shell command option and press Next again.

You should be on the Command Line page in the New Task Wizard. Here is what you need to enter:

Command: c:\windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe

Parameters: -command “”&” ‘”PATHTOSCRIPT\SCRIPTNAME.ps1′””    Be sure that you do not accidently delete a single/double quote when changing your script path.

Start in: You can leave blank

Give your task a unique name (ex: Search GP) and a description. Finally, pick an icon (or load your own). Press Next and Finish. You should now see your Search GP button within GPMC. To test it, just select it. Your PowerShell prompt should appear in a second.

Type whatever you would like to search for and press enter. A new browser tab will launch taking you directly to your search results! Pretty cool right?

So one final thing. Be sure to save your custom MMC.  Next, create a shortcut for the MCC. You will want to delete any existing GPMC shortcuts that you have and replace them with your custom GPMC.  To help you, change the icon of your MMC shortcut from the toolkit icon to the actual GPMC icon. The icon can be found here: %SystemRoot%\system32\gpoadmin.dll