Advanced Group Policy Management end of life
Advanced Group Policy Management end of life
Microsoft Advanced Group Policy Management (AGPM) EOL is rapidly approaching in 2026, and you don’t want to be caught without a secure, supported way to manage your critical Group Policy.
Quest offers flexible replacement options with GPOADmin and GPOADmin Express, whether you need immediate, essential change control or full enterprise-grade management.
Manage Group Policy more efficiently than ever before
The clock is ticking on AGPM
While AGPM has long been a useful tool for Group Policy management, it’s going away soon. Advanced Group Policy Management is part of the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack, which has reached end of life; mainstream support ended in 2018 and extended support will end in 2026.
AGPM has significant limitations
Advanced Group Policy Management suffers from some important drawbacks. In particular, its centralized administration model requires either granting excessive permissions to select administrators or passing instructions through multiple teams. This model increases the risks of security issues and potentially devastating human errors, and it is not scalable to meet the needs of modern organizations.
Don’t let your GPOs become a target
Given the pending AGPM EOL, you need a replacement ASAP to protect your GPOs from SwiftSlicer, BlackCat, Mango Sandstorm, Play and many other modern ransomware gangs who routinely abuse Group Policy as part of their attack playbooks. With over 4,000 GPO settings in Active Directory, you can’t afford go back to managing this enormous attack surface alone.
Don’t delay
Proper Group Policy management is more urgent than ever. Threat actors are now regularly abusing GPOs during their attacks to accomplish key tasks such as:
- Moving laterally from one device or system to others
- Escalating their access rights
- Avoiding detection by impairing antivirus tools and other security controls
- Registering scheduled tasks to deploy ransomware or other malware
In fact, these tactics are so rampant that threat intelligence firm Mandiant devotes an entire step of its five-phase threat playbook to abuse of Group Policy.
By replacing the EOLed AGPM with GPOADmin, you can dramatically reduce your risk.
Switch to GPOADmin Express - the seamless AGPM replacement
GPOADmin Express delivers the core capabilities you need for confident Group Policy change control, while laying the groundwork for future growth.
Confident change control
Replace AGPM with essentials like versioning, check-in/check-out, and multi-level approval workflows to keep changes tracked and controlled.
Rapid recovery from mistakes
Easily revert accidental or malicious edits with version history and rollback capabilities.
Complete visibility into changes
Use comparison tools to see what was modified and when it happened.
Hybrid and cloud readiness
Generate built-in reports that highlight which GPOs are suitable for Microsoft Intune or hybrid AD migration.
Future-ready foundation
Start with a seamless AGPM replacement now, and upgrade to full GPOADmin when you're ready for advanced policy protection, deeper auditing, and broader GPO lifecycle controls.
Enhance your GPO defense with GPOADmin
Ready to elevate Group Policy management? GPOADmin allows you to mitigate risk while delivering enterprise-ready compliance capabilities.
Clean up and consolidate
Want a clean Group Policy that is free of hidden vulnerabilities and easier to administer? GPOADmin overcomes the limited visibility provided by AGPM and native logs, empowering you to understand exactly which GPOs and settings you actually need and merge redundant or conflicting settings.
Streamline administration workflows
GPOADmin provides approval workflows for changing or creating GPOs, version control, and check-in and check-out processes for GPO editing — thwarting adversaries who try to manipulate Group Policy during attacks. It further slashes risk by eliminating the need to have highly privileged administrators who are tasked with managing all GPOs.
Protect critical settings
GPOADmin empowers you to lock down critical GPO settings so that they cannot be changed at all, whether accidentally by administrators or maliciously by adversaries like ransomware gangs.
Speed threat detection and response
The GPOADmin Watcher Service promptly notifies the security team about any unexpected and potentially dangerous modifications to Group Policy. In one click, they can revert an undesired setting change and jump back to a functional version of the GPO, instantly blocking an attack.
Overcome the global shortage of cybersecurity pros skilled in Active Directory
Group Policy is so powerful and complex that even one erroneous change can seriously impair security, productivity or compliance — but the number of IT pros fluent with AD in general and Group Policy in particular is plummeting. GPOADmin provides an intuitive interface for effective management. Plus, you can granularly delegate responsibility for managing specific policies and thoroughly test changes before rolling them out to the production environment.
Resources
GPOADmin Express
Control and simplify Group Policy management.
Ransomware protection: the vital role of Active Directory Group Policy
Learn how ransomware gangs abuse GPOs and how to improve ransomware protection with effective GPO management.
The Future of Your Group Policy GPOs
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