Group Policy is a feature of Microsoft Windows NT family of operating systems that provides centralized management and configuration of computers and remote users in an Active Directory environment. It is part of Microsoft's IntelliMirror technologies which aim to reduce the overall cost of supporting users of Windows. These technologies relate to management of disconnected machines or roaming users and include Roaming User Profiles, Folder Redirection and Offline files.

Although Group Policy is usually used in enterprise environments, its usage is also common in schools, businesses, and other small organizations to restrict certain actions that may pose potential security risks for instance, blocking the Windows Task Manager, restricting access to certain folders, disabling downloaded executable files and so on.