windows-itpro-docs/mdop/agpm/history-window.md

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title	description	author	ms.assetid	ms.pagetype	ms.mktglfcycl	ms.sitesec	ms.prod	ms.date
History Window	History Window	jamiejdt	f11f9ad9-bffe-4c56-8c46-fe9c0a8e55c1	mdop	manage	library	w10	06/16/2016

History Window

The history of a Group Policy object (GPO) can be displayed by double-clicking a GPO or by right-clicking a GPO and then clicking History. It is also displayed in the Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) as a tab for each GPO.

The history provides a list of all versions of the selected GPO saved within the archive. From the History window, you can obtain a report of the settings within a GPO, compare multiple versions of a GPO, or roll back to a previous version of a GPO.

Filtering events in the History window

The tabs within the History window filter the events displayed.

Tabs	Filtering
Show All	Display all versions of the GPO.
Checked In	Display only checked-in versions of the GPO. The deployed version is omitted from this list.
Labels Only	Display only GPOs that have labels associated with them.

 

Event information

Information is provided for each event in the history of the selected GPO.

GPO Characteristic	Description
Computer	Automatically generated version of the Computer Configuration portion of the GPO.
User	Automatically generated version of the User Configuration portion of the GPO.
Time	Timestamp of the version of the GPO when the action in the status field was performed.
State	The state of the selected version of the GPO: Deployed: This version of the GPO is currently live in the production environment. Checked In: This version of the GPO is available for authorized Editors to check out for editing or for a Group Policy administrator to deploy. Checked Out: This version of the GPO is currently checked out by an Editor and is unavailable for other Editors. (The checked out state is not recorded in the History except to indicate if a GPO is currently checked out.) Created: Identifies the date and time of the initial creation of the GPO. Labeled: Identifies a labeled version of the GPO.
GPO Status	The Computer Configuration and the User Configuration can be managed separately from each other. This status shows which portions of the GPO are enabled.
Owner	The person who checked in or deployed the GPO.
Comment	A comment entered by the owner of a GPO at the time that this version was modified. Useful for identifying the specifics of the version in case of the need to roll back to a previous version.

 

Reports

Depending on whether a single GPO version or multiple GPO versions are selected, the Settings and Differences buttons display reports on GPO settings. Right-clicking GPO versions provides the option to display XML-based reports as well.

Button	Effect
Settings	Generate an HTML-based report displaying the settings within the selected version of the GPO.
Differences	Generate an HTML-based report comparing the settings within multiple selected versions of the GPO.

 

Key to difference reports

Symbol	Meaning	Color
None	Item exists with identical settings in both GPOs	Varies with level
[#]	Item exists in both GPOs, but with changed settings	Blue
[-]	Item exists only in the first GPO	Red
[+]	Item exists only in the second GPO	Green

 

• For items with changed settings, the changed settings are identified when the item is expanded. The value for the attribute in each GPO is displayed in the same order that the GPOs are displayed in the report.

• Some changes to settings may cause an item to be reported as two different items (one present only in the first GPO, one present only in the second), rather than as one item that has changed.

Additional references

• Contents Tab