GPA provides you with diagnostics that list the set of policies and preferences for a specific user on a specific computer.
Diagnostics show the policies and preferences that are actually taking effect, as opposed to RSoP Analysis, which predicts what policies or preferences would take effect.
Diagnostics show the history of GPOs that have been applied. Network and Help Desk administrators can use this functionality to understand why a particular setting is not working correctly.
Diagnostics are run on individual computers, not on the GPA Console computer. They are particularly beneficial to the Help Desk in supporting policy management, because they can quickly track down the settings assigned to a user.
GPA acquires planned RSoP information with the RSoP Analysis node, which predicts the effective policy or preference that would be applied to a user when that user logs on to a specific computer.
GPA retrieves actual RSoP information with the Diagnostics node, which connects to the WMI data store on a remote computer and gets the information about the actual settings for the affected user and computer.
The difference between these GPO lists and their corresponding resultant settings provides valuable information for troubleshooting issues.
The Group Policy Results Diagnostics Report is available in the GP Analysis node.
To run a Group Policy Results Diagnostics Report:
Log on to a GPA Console computer with an account that has domain administrator permissions.
Start the GPA Console in the NetIQ Group Policy Administrator program group.
In the left pane, expand GP Analysis, and then click Diagnostics.
On the Action menu, click GP Diagnostics Wizard.
Read the introduction text, and then click Next.
Browse and select the computer you want to analyze, and then click Next.
NOTE:The computer you select should support the RSoP logging mode. For more information, see the Microsoft documentation.
Select the user from the list, and then click Next.
Review the Summary window, and then click Finish.