The Group Policy Editor in Windows is a Management Console that can be used to make changes to Windows’ settings and registries. Instead of going through a tedious process of using the Registry Editor, one could use the Group Policy Editor as well. But here comes the point, Microsoft only bundles the Group Policy Editor with the Professional and Enterprise Editions of Windows, leaving the users of Windows 11/10 Home behind. In this post, we will show you how you can enable group policy editor in Windows 11/10 Home Edition.
How to Enable Group Policy Editor in Windows 11/10 Home
Here is the list of the methods which could help one Enable Group Policy Editor in Windows Home Editions.
- Install Group Policy using Command Prompt
- BAT File Package Installation
- Manually Enable Group Policy in Windows 10 Home
- Policy Plus Software
Following any of the below-mentioned methods will get the job of Enabling Group Policy Editor in Windows 11/10 Home done.
1] Install Group Policy using Command Prompt
Firstly, open Command Prompt with admin permission. Secondly, copy and paste the below-mentioned code directly in the command line and wait for the process to complete. Once done, just restart your Machine and follow any of the methods to open up the Group Policy Editor in your Machine.
FOR %F IN ("%SystemRoot%\servicing\Packages\Microsoft-Windows-GroupPolicy-ClientTools-Package~*.mum") DO (
DISM /Online /NoRestart /Add-Package:"%F"
)
FOR %F IN ("%SystemRoot%\servicing\Packages\Microsoft-Windows-GroupPolicy-ClientExtensions-Package~*.mum") DO (
DISM /Online /NoRestart /Add-Package:"%F"
)
2] BAT File Package Installation
A Reddit user published a method using which Windows 10 users could be able to Enable and access the Group Policy Editor easily. It just required them to save the below-mentioned code in the text file and save it with .bat extension. After saving the file, Right-Click, and choose Run as Administrator.
@echo off
pushd "%~dp0"
dir /b %SystemRoot%\servicing\Packages\Microsoft-Windows-GroupPolicy-ClientExtensions-Package~3*.mum >List.txt
dir /b %SystemRoot%\servicing\Packages\Microsoft-Windows-GroupPolicy-ClientTools-Package~3*.mum >>List.txt
for /f %%i in ('findstr /i . List.txt 2^>nul') do dism /online /norestart /add-package:"%SystemRoot%\servicing\Packages\%%i"
pause
Copy the above script into a text file, and then save it as a BAT file. Then right-click on the file, and run with admin permission.
3] Manually Enable Group Policy in Windows 11/10 Home
The Group Policy Editor comes pre-installed with Windows 10 but is just simply disabled by Microsoft. So here’s a method using which you can use to Enable the Group Policy Editor in Windows 11/10 Home.
Firstly, fire up the Run Dialog using Win + R or using the Start Search Box, Secondly paste in the specified file location and press enter.
%SystemRoot%\servicing\Packages
Now, you could be able to find a lot of files in the folder, but we need to specifically search for the few files we require for enabling the Group Policy Editor.
Microsoft-Windows-GroupPolicy-ClientExtensions-Package.mum Microsoft-Windows-GroupPolicy-ClientTools-Package.mum
With this step done, open an Elevated Command Prompt Shell and paste in the below command in the command line to Enable the Group Policy Editor. Your PC will restart once the installation is complete, and you’ll have a fully functioning Group Policy Editor on your Machine.
dism /online /norestart /add-package:"%SystemRoot%\servicing\Packages{{PackageFileName}}
4] Policy Plus: Alternative to Microsoft’s Group Policy Editor
Policy Plus is a third-party alternative to Microsoft’s Group Policy Editor on Windows. It comes in handy in places where the Group Policy Editor is not available by default; a great example could be the Windows 10 Home Edition. It has almost a similar interface and comes with additional search functionality through which one could search for the required policies. One could search using Policy, ID, or even text via Policy Plus.
For Windows 11/10 Home users, a restart is required for the applied changes in policies to take place. Also, per-user GPO’s cannot be applied to the same version of Windows 10 Home. Download Policy Plus for Windows here
Additional Software to Search Group Policy Settings
There are a lot of Group Policies available with Windows, and searching for each one of them through the in-built Group Policy Editor becomes a tedious task, so here are a few methods using which one could search for Group Policy Settings easily.
- Group Policy Registry Settings Mapping
2. GPSearch
3. NIT GPO Search
1] Group Policy Registry Settings Mapping
Offered by Microsoft, the Group Policy Registry Mapper could be used to search for policies that are all listed in an Excel Spreadsheet. In addition, one could filter out the policies based on Windows versions, File names, and a lot more. Download the Group Policy Registry Mapper from the official website.
2] GPSearch
This GPSearch tool comes in handy for searching through different policies without installing any additional software on your Machine. It offers quite a few functionalities such as search through different group policy attributes, sorting it via Role, and lots more. You can browse it on its official website.
3] NIT GPO Search
NIT GPO Search is yet another free tool that could be used for searching through Registries and Policies on Windows. It allows search for policies; the display’s all the registries while being fast enough. Its downside’s being, its ability to search for only a single keyword, and could only search in “C:\windows\PolicyDefinations” folder. You can download this software from Software-virtualisierung.
I hope the post was useful, and you were able to learn quite a few methods to Install and Enable the Group Policy Editor in Windows 11/10 Home.
