Where are Group Policies setting information held? (NETIQKB35036)

goal
Where is the Group Policy information stored?

goal
Where are Group Policy Objects physically located?

fact
NetIQ Group Policy Administrator 3.0

fact
Microsoft Windows Server 2003

fact
NetIQ Group Policy Administrator 4.x

fact
NetIQ Group Policy Administrator 5.0

fix

According to Microsoft, the Group Policy information is stored in the following locations:

• Approximately 20% of the GPO settings are held in the AD container called Policies in the path ..System | Policies.  Under this Policies container is a GUID container, one per GPO.  This information is replicated around with the Active Directory Replication.
  
• The other approximately 80% of the GPO settings are held in the SYSVOL directory in the path ..\WINNT\SYSVOL\domain\Policies. Under this Policies directory in Sysvol is a GUID directory, one per GPO.  This information is replicated using the File Replication Service.
  
• The other location that can hold additional GPO setting information is the IP Security container.  This information is held in the path ..System | IP Security. 

When a GPO is linked to an OU, a property is set on the OU container that links the GPO to the OU.  The Active Directory property that is set on the OU is call gPLink.  This value will hold the LDAP path to the GPO [GUID] held in the Active Directory Policies container (ie. [LDAP://CN={6AC1786C-016F-11D2-945F-00C04fB984F9},CN=Policies,CN=System,DC=domain,DC=com;0] )

Formerly known as NETIQKB35036