Re: Group Policy Editor Windows 11 Home
Alfonzo Liebenstein
I set up a VM with windows 10 home and it seems to work fine there. So I assume something is conflicting somehow. The same policy also applies just fine on a windows 10 pro pc we have. All of my pcs are on a local network, but not connected to any domain. I set each group policy locally.
Well, I thought Home edition does not allow for GPOs, one of the reasons you go with Pro edition. If so, strange that you see it in the VM. And it may have changed since last I read, I just never deal with Home edition.
I am using the group policy editor mmc snap-in to edit the policy. It then creates a registry.pol in the grouppolicy folder as it should. I am fine with having to apply the policy on each machine separately as it is only a small handful.
For those users who want to enable gpedit.msc on their systems without buying a Windows 10 Pro license, the good news is that you can follow the instructions below to enable gpedit.msc in Windows 10 Home edition for free without upgrading.
If you run gpedit.msc on Windows 10 Home, you will get the following error:Windows cannot find "gpedit.msc". Make sure you typed the name correctly and then try again. gpedit.msc is unrecognized in Windows HomeAlthough you can achieve most of the functionality available in the Group Policy editor with Windows Registry, it can be a very difficult and risky job.Instead, we can enable the group policy editor in Windows 10 Home using the methods described below.
Although we have tested the script and commands and it does not affect Windows functionality in any way, it is always advisable to take a backup of your current Windows installation by creating a system restore point.To enable the Group Policy Editor on Windows 10 or Windows 11 Home, follow these steps:Open Command Prompt in administrative mode.
Domain Management: Windows 10 Home cannot be joined with an Active Directory domain network even after enabling the group policies.BitLocker Drive Encryption: BitLocker is not available on Windows 10 Home. It will not be installed along side gpedit.msc and settings related to BitLocker will not work.Some settings can be enabled from the editor but it will not have any effect on the system settings.
If you are not comfortable with running the commands, you can download and run the batch file below. This will do the same thing and install gpedit.msc on your Windows Home computer:Download the GPEdit Enabler script from the link below: GPEdit Enabler for Windows 10 Home Edition (393 bytes, 262,671 hits)
(Optional) Restart the computer.Enable Group Policy Editor using GPEdit InstallerIf the above methods do not work for you, you can try this method, which lets you download and install the actual Group Policy Editor.Since the Group Policy Editor is not included in Windows 10 Home by default, we will need to download the editor first. Follow these steps to download the setup files and install the Group Policy editor using the GPEdit installer:Download the GPEdit Installer by clicking on this link:
Policy Plus is a third-party app and an alternative to the built-in Group Policy editor. The interface is very similar to GPEdit. One major benefit of using Policy Plus is that it comes with a search function where you can search for your required policies.Download Policy Plus from this link:
It is a portable app so it will open immediately. You can make changes to the policies exactly how you do it in the Windows built-in group policy editor.Hopefully, these methods will help you enable gpedit.msc in your system.
One thing to note here is that these methods are useful when you want to use a local group policy editor. If you are a domain administrator and want to configure group policies on a Windows 10 Home computer using Windows Server Active Directory, this method will not be effective as Windows 10 Home does not support joining a domain in an Active Directory.You can also enable other functionalities in Windows 10 Home:
- Enable lusrmgr.msc in Windows 10 Home
- Enable Hyper-V on Windows 10 Home
- Enable RDP on Windows 10 Home
If you wish to enable, restrict or control certain administrative functionality in Windows, thereare multiple ways you can implement tweaks. But in the end, it all comes down to registry changes. Youcan make these manually, with a registry editor (regedit.exe) or you can make them using Group Policies. The latter is a set of administrative templates that allowsystem functionality to be shaped and then replicated across multiple nodes, simplifying management.Although changes still happen in the registry under the hood, Group Policies are exposed to users viaa friendly human-readable UI editor, and they are safer than manual registry work. The onlyproblem is, you don't get Group Policies in Windows Home.
Indeed, I've noticed a lot of people clamoring over the fact that Windows 10 Home does not have thismagical group policy editor, which comes with a handy name of gpedit.msc. This is nothing new. Going asfar back as Windows XP at the very least, Home editions of the Windows operating system did not havethe group policy editor, and people who wanted to make changes had to make registry tweaks. Which iswhere the utility namedPolicy Plus comes in. After me.
I shall. First, the attempt to include gpedit.msc into Home versions of Windows is not a new thing.It's been done for every single version of Windows, and always with rather bad results, I must say. Youwould get tweaks that show how to enable or run the Group Policy Editor in Windows Home, but it meanthacking system files and possibly invalidating the support/warranty, and worse yet, this rarely worked.Sometimes, you'd have a UI but the changes would not actually be implemented into registry. You'd onlyget a bogus visual effect. For that reason, I'm not going to talk about any method where you hack filesacross system folders.
Policy Plus does things differently. It presents a UI, in a manner, style and wording that is verysimilar to how gpedit.msc looks and behaves like, but it uses its own functions to access the registryand make necessary changes. Policy Plus is a standalone tool, it is compliant with Windows support, andit works in all versions and editions of Windows, namely 7 through 10, Home through Enterprise,although technically, you do not need this for Pro, Ultimate, Education, or Enterprise builds.
I download the tool and ran it (as admin). It is very consistent with gpedit.msc, but then, it alsodiffers slightly in how it behaves. By default, it will present a smaller subset of administrativetemplates than what you'd expect. But it also has the option to download these (wait, don't). We will get to that soon.
The tool has a lot of nifty features. Apart from the obvious usage, which is just like gpedit.msc,it lets you import and export policies and registry changes, so you can replicate those across multiplesystems. It also comes with a powerful search function, with detailed filtering.
However, please note that if you filter, say at least Windows 10, it will only show options thathave been added in Windows 10, but there are also options from previous versions of Windows that maystill be applicable. This means the presented set is more sort of an exclude rather than includelist.
I started by trying a few obvious, visible changes. Like camera access. For each selected policy,you have several options. You can implemented changes for the computer (all users) or for your user.Some policies are only available for one or the other, some for both. You get detailed explanations onwhat each policy does. Moreover, in some cases, you will note a non-intuitive Enabled option toblock/stop/disable certain functionality, and in others, the other way around. Some of the policies arekind of double-negative options, like do not allow whatever, which means you need to enable it toprevent something from running.
If you want to learn even more about the particular policy, you can right-click. There are severaloptions here, all extremely useful. You can check the Semantic Policy Fragment, i.e. how the system interprets the particularsettings (and then you can script this if you need to). You can also get policy details - again, usefulfor scripting. Finally, the Element Inspector will show you the detailed breakdown of registry paths,keys and values that are affected by the particular policy, so you know exactly what's happening behindthe scenes.
Policy Plus contains only a subset of available administrative templates. You can import more. Youcan manually download and installthese, or do it through the tool's menu. Now, this will effectively import all administrative templatesfrom around Windows 2000 onwards. This is good if you need to administer multiple systems runningdifferent editions of Windows, but it will create an unnecessary clutter otherwise. I tested this inWindows 10, and then had to sift through hundreds of policies that were only applicable to XP orWindows Vista or alike. There's really no reason to do this unless you truly need to. Just keepwhatever's available by default, as that's the smallest subset that will actually result in actual,meaningful functionality changes on your system. If you do use all these templates, search andfiltering can help.
Once you're done, you must save the changes via the file menu. Otherwise, policy changes won'tbe written and you won't see any difference in the system behavior. Let the tool write the changes andthen you can test what gives. BTW, should I remind you that having system backups and images is always useful before doing something like this?
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