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July 2, 2026

Using Active Directory GPOs to Manage Users and Desktops

Omnissa Horizon 8 includes many Group Policy administrative ADMX templates for centralizing the management and configuration of Horizon 8 components and remote desktops.

After you import these templates into Active Directory, you can use them to set policies that apply to the following groups and components:

  • All systems regardless of which user logs in
  • All users regardless of the system they log in to
  • Omnissa Horizon Connection Server configuration
  • Omnissa Horizon Client configuration
  • Horizon Agent configuration

After a GPO is applied, properties are stored in the local Windows registry of the specified component.

You can use GPOs to set all the policies that are available from the console web interface. You can also use GPOs to set policies that are not available from the UI. For a complete list and description of the settings available through ADMX templates, see the Horizon Remote Desktop Features and GPOs document.

Using Smart Policies with Omnissa Dynamic Environment Manager

You can also use Smart Policies to create policies that control the behavior of the USB redirection, virtual printing, clipboard redirection, client drive redirection, and PCoIP display protocol features on specific remote desktops. This feature requires Dynamic Environment Manager.

With Smart Policies, you can create policies that take effect only if certain conditions are met. For example, you can configure a policy that disables the client drive redirection feature if a user connects to a remote desktop from outside your corporate network.

In general, Horizon 8 policy settings that you configure for remote desktop features in Dynamic Environment Manager override any equivalent registry key and group policy settings.

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