Ms security baselines - secguide

Not silly all - this tends to be a common point of confusion with Microsoft’s Security Compliance Toolkit (SCT) and the baselines. The term SecGuide is often used as a generic name in the folder or file names, but each baseline is actually tied to a specific version of Windows. For example, the Windows Server 2022 baseline is not identical to Windows Server 2025 (or 2022 vs Windows 11). They share a lot of common recommendations, but some settings are version-specific, especially around new features, deprecated settings, and registry locations.

The reason the filenames often look the same is because Microsoft uses a standard folder structure with the SecGuide naming convention, like Windows10-21H2-SecGuide or WindowsServer-2022-SecGuide. The “SecGuide” part is just Microsoft’s shorthand for “security guide,” not an indication that it covers all versions. The version details are usually in the parent folder or in the baseline’s XML/CSV/Excel file name inside the archive.

If you want to use multiple baselines, you don’t just rename them arbitrarily. Each baseline should be imported or referenced in whatever tool you are using (like Group Policy, Local Group Policy Object, or Security Compliance Toolkit’s Policy Analyzer). You can store multiple baselines side by side in separate folders. For example, you could have:

C:\Baselines\WindowsServer2025
C:\Baselines\WindowsServer2022
C:\Baselines\Windows11-25H2

Then, when applying or analyzing a baseline, point to the correct folder/version. The content inside each baseline, including templates, GPO backups, Excel guides, is version-specific. Renaming the folder won’t make a baseline valid for a different OS version, and using the wrong baseline could trigger incorrect settings or unsupported configurations.

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hth

Marcin