There are two major exceptions that break the LSDOU flow. These are critical for security and flexibility.

At its core, GPO precedence is the deterministic set of rules that decides which policy "wins" when multiple policies conflict. Without this hierarchy, a domain would descend into chaos, with settings overwriting each other unpredictably. The principle is known as —an acronym that every administrator memorizes early in their career.

Open that HTML file and look for the column or the "Winning GPO" indicator. It will show you, from top to bottom, which GPO applied last and thus which value is active on the endpoint.

For an administrator troubleshooting a rogue setting, the command is your best friend:

If a GPO link is set to , it creates a hard stop.