Network Security Configuration Wizard is free software. Hence, provides the ability to create and customize a set of baseline security settings. Further, can be applied to one or more computers in an organization.
The application allows users to create a comprehensive security baseline for their computers. Therefore can assist them in understanding and configuring the Windows Firewall, Windows Defender and BitLocker. Network Security Configuration Wizard does not have any interface of its own. But instead runs as a background process on an endpoint.
This means that you cannot use it to configure any settings on your computer. But it is only the background process that provides the ability to configure security settings on other computers.
Network Security Configuration Wizard vs Group Policy
Group Policy is the way that you can configure security settings on Microsoft Windows-based computers. Through Group Policy Editor (GPE) you can enable or disable Windows Defender and Windows Firewall. You can also choose to enable or disable BitLocker. Although this is a different task than enabling or disabling BitLocker using Group Policy Editor. In order to use these security tools through Group Policy, you need to be an Administrator. Especially, on the computer that you are configuring.
By default, local Administrators are not members of the Administrators group on domain-joined computers. In order for Group Policy to take effect, local Administrators must be members of this group. This means that if you want to regularly change certain security settings for many computers in your organization, you need to have access to each computer and you will have to run GPE as an Administrator from each computer every time that you want to make changes.
Setback and limitations
This can be time-consuming if you are trying to configure settings for computers with many applications and different security requirements. That is why Network Security Configuration Wizard was created. It allows you to make changes directly from one computer without needing access to each individual computer that needs the change made.
However, because it runs as a background process rather than as an interface tool like GPE, it has its limitations when it comes to configuring local security settings on an endpoint computer. While GPE allows you to specify which user accounts will be affected by a configured policy setting, Network Security Configuration Wizard cannot do this.
All configuration changes are useful globally regardless of whether they affect specific user accounts or not. If your deployment scenario requires that changes should only be applied locally (for example when making changes for users) Network Security Configuration Wizard is not suitable for your needs.
What is Network Security Configuration for?
Network Security Configuration allows IT administrators to configure security settings on computers running Windows operating systems. , Administrators can run the tool from Windows PowerShell, which provides a command-line interface for making changes. They can also use the tool to create a baseline of security settings, which can be applied to one or more computers in an organization