Group policy is cool but….

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Stumbled across this video tonight from Linus Tech Tips (not Linux but Linus). The video is about enabling Group policy editor. BUT on a Home PC even
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Susan Bradley Patch Lady

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I watched Linus’s video too. He makes some points about similarities with Windows versions. But also failed to mention that you can’t really make a home version work just like a Pro version. No doubt some clever registry edits gets you some things, but it also could mess up you PC if you don’t do it right.

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As a “consumer user”, overloaded my old brain right away even though I slowed playback to 75%. Lots of useful tips – need a catalog to remember tips potentially useful to me.

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John wrote:

but it also could mess up you PC if you don’t do it right.

…and will revert registry changes with the next update/upgrade.

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… and the commands mentioned, won’t necessarily add Group Edit to Windows home.

The commands did result in WinSxS entries but nothing that can be run.

Previous experience loading Group Policy into Windows 10 Home was that it may not be useless but is very close. In other words, Windows 10 Home and Windows 11 Home users are advised not to follow the steps to add Group Policy edit. You will be disappointed if you do.

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Some years ago, when I first obtained Windows 8.0 Home with my new computer, I read everything that I could about “improving”  Windows 8.

Many tips mentioned that a function could be initiated or improved by “editing Group Policy”.  Try as I might, I could not initiate the Group Policy editor.

It was some time before I learned that the Group Policy editor was only available with Windows 8 Pro.  The book, magazine and web writers that I read were able to afford the Pro version, probably since it was provided by their employers.  I found that in order to make changes in Windows 8, I needed a Registry hack, or the change wasn’t possible.

 

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Just about every setting you can apply in gpedit.msc (if not all of them, it’s almost 5pm and my brain is shot) correlates to a reg setting.  No need to go through the hassle of enabling the editor when you can search for the setting(s) you want here: https://admx.help/ which conveniently provides the associated registry info for each setting.  As mentioned, YMMV as to what settings will actually be supported via Home sku, but I personally have had luck with configuring things like automatic updates, screensaver timeouts, etc..

BTW, https://admx.help is a great website for quick reference to GPO settings.  We use it often to quickly confirm settings being pushed via GPO, or if we are deploying via different method than GPO.

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AlexEiffel

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For those interested in the subject, I did a good amount of research on the subject here:

https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/tweaking-standalone-pcs-htfdlgpw-or-how-to-feel-da-local-group-policys-working/

The conclusion is the group policy editor might work, but if the setting is ignored by the home version, it isn’t very useful. I personally use registry settings to control a Windows Home computer and it works well where it can. After a feature update, you can run the registry file again. I explain a bit of things in this post as well.

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