Not configured versus enabled versus disabled

When we double-clicked on the Minimum password length setting in order to make a change, the screen that presented itself was pretty short and sweet. You selected the checkbox for whether or not you wanted to enforce this policy setting, and then you set a number of characters. No real questions there, but if you wanted a more in-depth explanation on what this setting was all about, you could have clicked on the Explain tab in order to get some additional information. This is important to remember when working within Group Policies, as sometimes the settings are not so clear-cut. GPO settings always have a tab with some details explaining what the setting is for and how to use it.

Oftentimes, you will find policy settings with three choices: Not Configured, Enabled, or Disabled. Depending on which option you select, that opens the door to additional settings or configurations within that particular policy setting:

• Not Configured: This one basically means to ignore this setting. If a policy setting is configured as not configured, Group Policy will not take any active steps to change the settings on the device where the policy is applying. If the user has manually adjusted that setting on their own workstation or some other management tool has made a change to it, the GPO will ignore it and leave whatever settings are already in place.
• Enabled: This forces Group Policy to take action on this particular setting. Choosing Enabled often enables a drop-down box or fields for additional configuration that is needed, depending on what the setting is all about. We will see this in the following example.
• Disabled: Sometimes, setting a policy setting to Disabled can mean an active squashing of that setting, forcing it to be disabled. Other times, setting to Disabled can be more akin to an ignore-type situation. When changing a setting to Disabled, it is usually helpful to read over the explanation settings to make sure your selection is going to really do what you want it to do.