Windows 10 Group Policies

TeeEmDee

TeeEmDee

TeeEmDee

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Joined
24 Feb 2020
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36
Location
Leicestershire
Hello,

I've recently noticed that there are a lot of group policies set on my personal pc that only I use at home. I don't know why this is as I don't remember ever setting anything like that. I've tried many different suggestions on different forums but nothing seemed to work, and now I cannot access any of the group policy editors with the error message 'MMC could not create the snap-in.'. My account has administrator and I even made a second account on my pc and set it as administrator to see if that would help. I started with Windows 10 Home but upgraded to Windows 10 Pro (unactivated) shortly after because I thought maybe that would fix it. Please help I can't even access the Microsoft Store without it telling me that the group policies are preventing it!
 
If you can't access gpedit.msc anymore then you might get away with deleting the contents of C:\Windows\System32\GroupPolicy and then running gpupdate /force from an admin command prompt.

You can't apply policies with Home editions of Windows, and to be honest if you don't know how these became configured it's probably best to do a clean install. A clean install of Professional will not have any local policies configured.
 
andshrew said:
If you can't access gpedit.msc anymore then you might get away with deleting the contents of C:\Windows\System32\GroupPolicy and then running gpupdate /force from an admin command prompt.

You can't apply policies with Home editions of Windows, and to be honest if you don't know how these became configured it's probably best to do a clean install. A clean install of Professional will not have any local policies configured.
Click to expand...
I deleted the contents and then tried to run that command and it says 'gpupdate is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file'
 
Microsoft Teams does this - copies group policies over from a Teams domain host!

I deleted group policy folder as mentioned above but never found a permanent fix to them being applied at home.
 
Shoza said:
Microsoft Teams does this - copies group policies over from a Teams domain host!

I deleted group policy folder as mentioned above but never found a permanent fix to them being applied at home.
Click to expand...
ah that's annoying I need teams - what do you mean by never found a permanent fix, what did deleting the folder do?
 
TeeEmDee said:
Hello,

I've recently noticed that there are a lot of group policies set on my personal pc that only I use at home. I don't know why this is as I don't remember ever setting anything like that. I've tried many different suggestions on different forums but nothing seemed to work, and now I cannot access any of the group policy editors with the error message 'MMC could not create the snap-in.'. My account has administrator and I even made a second account on my pc and set it as administrator to see if that would help. I started with Windows 10 Home but upgraded to Windows 10 Pro (unactivated) shortly after because I thought maybe that would fix it. Please help I can't even access the Microsoft Store without it telling me that the group policies are preventing it!
Click to expand...

Home does not have Group policy its only avaliable in Pro+
 
in which case activating would fix the issue, Group policy is blocked by unlicensed version of Windows.

Group policy is only avaliable to Pro version & its the license that gives you the extra features Home/Pro install is identical.
 
smogsy said:
in which case activating would fix the issue, Group policy is blocked by unlicensed version of Windows.

Group policy is only avaliable to Pro version & its the license that gives you the extra features Home/Pro install is identical.
Click to expand...
ah so I have to activate? I thought that could be the case and I could activate it easily enough
 
smogsy said:
indeed the its license that unlock features not the Install the installs are identical.
Click to expand...

Yeah that's not correct, sorry. The ISO for business editions of W10 is not the same as Home. You don't need to activate Win10 Pro to be able to use (or test) GPOs. He's upgraded to Pro, but hasn't activated it, but it's still Pro and therefore GPOs can be modified.

OPs, there's a PS script available on Technet as part of the W10 Security Baselines that will set all your GPOs back to day one. Probably a quick google will help you find it.
 
if it is group policy's they will be under the reg keys
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Policies
and
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\System\CurrentControlSet\Policies

to return to stock just delete everything in there, (make a backup first of course!)

As to why they might be there in the first place have you signed into a work account to access emails/sharepoint etc? or done a work place join?! if so then you may have fallen under some intune policies.
 
LizardKing said:
if it is group policy's they will be under the reg keys
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Policies
and
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\System\CurrentControlSet\Policies

to return to stock just delete everything in there, (make a backup first of course!)

As to why they might be there in the first place have you signed into a work account to access emails/sharepoint etc? or done a work place join?! if so then you may have fallen under some intune policies.
Click to expand...

This isn't how GPOs work. GPOs effectively set registry keys throughout the system. Removing the policy folder isn't enough because the key values are still set until changed back. The policy folder is just a record of what they should be.
 
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