Managing Firefox with Active directory GPO

Hi Friends,
This article explains the implementation of group policy object for Firefox browser in active directory environment. By default,active directory GPO don't have any support for controlling the browser's setting other than internet explorer.Comparison between the IE and Firefox browser is prevalent in the IT.Since most of the users prefers to have Firefox as their browser rather than IE because of the developer friendly Webdev feature.Hence the effective usage, managing and controlling the Firefox attributes from the server is important.This article helps you to deploy and control the Firefox behavior from the active directory server group policy.
The Firefox is an open source browser package from the Unix/Linux environment and but comes as an executable exe package for the windows. Let me first explain what is AD and GPO.Active directory is just like database with all details about the domain, will have complete records of resources(all objects and their attributes) in the domain environment.GPO (Group Policy Object) is set of policies that can be applied for users and computers in the domain.Please refer Microsoft site for complete description of AD and GPO.
step1:
Download the Firefox msi package and store it in a shared location.
step2:
Using GPO - software deployment just assign /publish the Firefox msi package.
step3:
Download FirefoxADM - is a freeware contains .adm file and logon scripts.
step4:
Using GPO - Logon script , add the downloaded logon script.
step5:
Open GPO and right click the administrative template in user/computer setting and add the downloaded administrative template file i.e .adm file.
step6:
After adding,find the new "Mozilla Firefox default settings" and it will comprises the settings for Firefox.
Step7:
Configure the settings as per need.

Finally, implementation of Firefox administrative templates into the active directory GPO is done.Likewise we can add any available third party application(hopefully both .msi and .adm) into the server side GPO.

Please do post if you have any questions.

Thanks,
Logu
logu_microsoft@hotmail.com