Patent ID: 7398529

Claim:
A computer implemented method for selective restoring of policy objects associated with a directory service of a computer system, comprising: backing up a plurality of the policy objects associated with the directory service of the computer system; detecting a problem with a selected one of the plurality of policy objects; and restoring the selected one of the plurality of policy objects without restoring others of the plurality of policy objects, further comprising at least one of the following: wherein backing up includes storing object settings, links to directory service objects, and security information regarding directory service objects; wherein restoring includes restoring the selected one of the plurality of objects to a domain of the computer system from which it was backed up; wherein restoring includes restoring the selected one of the plurality of objects to a parent domain of a domain of the computer system from which it was backed up; wherein restoring includes restoring the selected one of the plurality of objects to a child domain of a domain of the computer system from which it was backed up; or wherein a security privilege of the computer system is required to effect a particular setting of the policy objects and wherein the method further comprises delegating the security privilege to selected users for selected objects in the directory service, wherein various levels of security privileges can be delegated and wherein the levels of security privileges that can be delegated include the ability to configure an entire policy object or the ability to configure only one or a plurality of administrative templates contained in a policy object.