Best practices for Security Configuration and Analysis

Security Configuration and Analysis is a tool which can be used to analyze and configure computer security. For general security issues, see Best practices for security.

If you require frequent analysis of a large number of computers, as with a domain-based infrastructure, use the Secedit.exe command line tool.

For more information, see Automating security configuration tasks.

Only use Security Configuration and Analysis to configure security areas not affected by Group Policy settings.

This includes areas such as security on local files and folders, registry keys, and system services. Otherwise, Group Policy settings will override the local settings. For more information, see Group Policy.

Do not use Security Configuration and Analysis when you are configuring security for a domain or an organizational unit.

Otherwise, you must configure each client individually. In that case, you can:

• Use Security Templates to create a template and apply it to the appropriate Group Policy object.
For more information, see To import a security template to a Group Policy object.
• Use the Security Settings extension to Group Policy to edit individual security settings on a Group Policy object. For more information, see To edit a security setting on a Group Policy object.