Another incredibly useful documentation feature inside GPMC is the ability to export a report for any given GPO. There are two different places from which you can generate this report. On the left tree of the screen, you can simply right-click on any GPO (or even a link to a GPO), and choose Save Report...:
Alternatively, if you are already looking inside the Settings tab for any given GPO, you may also right-click anywhere inside the Settings screen and choose the option to Save Report....
Whichever location you use for clicking on this option, all you need to do is specify a location and name for saving this report, and select whether you want it to be an HTML File or XML File. I like the look and feel of these settings inside HTML, so I am going to select that option:
Now, double-click on the report file in order to open it, and view the data stored inside. The generated report contains information from the Details tab inside the Group Policy, so you can quickly discover whether user or computer configuration settings were disabled. It also shows all of the active links related to this policy. Security Filtering settings and Delegation are listed next. Finally, down at the bottom of the report are all of the settings stored inside this GPO. With the information provided inside this little report file, you could completely recreate your GPO from scratch in the event that it was ever accidentally deleted or modified:
It may be smart to store these reports somewhere centrally. If you take two seconds and create this report immediately after creating any new policy, you will always have a backup "paper" copy of every single one of your GPOs and the settings contained within. You could also create new reports after any change to an existing GPO. In the event of a catastrophic failure of Active Directory or a recovery gone wrong, where you lose GPOs and their settings, you could then utilize these reports in order to rebuild the environment.