The Group Policy: Internet Explorer Maintenance Extension protocol enables administrators to assign custom Favorites, links, security, interface, and other settings to Internet Explorer as part of a Group Policy Object (GPO). This enables administrators to enforce Internet-related security standards and provide a common browser interface within an organization.
Background
The Group Policy: Core Protocol Specification (as specified in [MS-GPOL]) enables clients to discover and retrieve policy settings created by administrators of a domain. These settings are located in Group Policy Objects (GPOs), which are assigned to policy target accounts in Active Directory.
On each client, each GPO is interpreted and acted on by software components known as client-side plug-ins. The client-side plug-ins responsible for a given GPO are specified using an attribute on the GPO. This attribute specifies a list of globally unique identifier (GUID) pairs. The first GUID of each pair is referred to as a client-side extension GUID (CSE GUID). The second GUID of each pair is referred to as a tool extension GUID.
For each GPO that is applicable to a client, the client consults the CSE GUIDs listed in the GPO to determine which client-side plug-ins on the client handle the GPO. The client then invokes the client-side plug-ins to handle the GPO.
A client-side plug-in uses the contents of the GPO to retrieve settings specific to its class in a manner specific to its class. Once its class-specific settings are retrieved, the client-side plug-in uses those settings to perform class-specific processing.
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