Enable Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc) on Windows 10/11 Home Edition | Windows OS Hub (2025)

The Local Group Policy Editor console (gpedit.msc) is used to configure Windows settings. Gpedit.msc is a built-in MMC snap-in available in all Windows editions (Pro/Enterprise/Education) except Home and Single Language. This guide covers how to use the local GPO editor, as well as how to install and open gpedit.msc in Windows 10 and Windows 11 Home editions.

Using the Local Group Policy Editor (GPEdit.msc) on Windows

To open the Local Group Policy Editor on Windows, run the gpedit.msc command:

The settings available in the Local GPO Editor console are organized in a tree structure and divided into two sections.

• Computer Configuration – global settings of the Windows operating system and components. Make changes to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE (HKLM) section of the registry.
• User Configuration – settings that apply to computer users. Changes are applied to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER (HKCU) key of the user registry.

The GPO editor contains thousands of Windows settings, with a strict hierarchy, detailed descriptions, and predefined configuration options to choose from. Settings made in the gpedit.msc editor have a high priority and override any settings made by the user or administrator in the Windows GUI or Control Panel.

Each GPO configuration section has three subsections:

• Software Settings
• Windows Settings — allows to configure basic Windows security settings (including password policy and account lockout settings, audit policy, user rights assignments)
• Administrative Templates – settings of various Windows components, roles, and features. Both built-in Windows Administrative Templates and additional installed ADMX templates are available here (for example, admx templates for managing MS Office apps or templates for Google Chrome)

To change any GPO setting in the console, find the section in which it is in, and open its properties in the right pane of the GPO editor.

Most GPO settings have only three options available: Enabled, Disabled, andNot configured. By default, all GPO settings in the Administrative Templates section are not configured. Select Enabled or Disabled and click OK to configure the GPO option. Select Not Configured to return the GPO options to its default value.

Some GPO settings can have additional parameters that can be configured in the Options section. For example, to set a desktop wallpaper file through a GPO, you need to enable the policy, specify the path to a JPEG image file in the Wallpaper name field, and select a wallpaper style.

See the Help section for a detailed description of each GPO option and its values. Windows versions to which this policy applies are listed in the Supported on section. For example, At least Windows 10 means that the policy only applies to computers running Windows 10/11 and Windows Server 2016/2019/2022. This GPO option doesn’t work on Windows 8.1 or 7.

The registry.pol files in the following directories store the settings of the configured GPO options:

• %SystemRoot%\System32\GroupPolicy – computer policy
• %SystemRoot%\System32\GroupPolicyUsers – user policy

If you clean up these folders, you will reset all local policy settings to their default values (Not Configured).

GPO ADMX files define the registry settings and their values that need to be changed. Therefore, when you set a particular GPO option, the policy handler actually makes changes to the registry.

The following Excel file describes the correspondence between the names of the Group Policy options and the registry keys: Group Policy Settings Reference Spreadsheet for Windows 11 2023 Update 23H2 ( https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=105668 ).

How to Install GPEdit.msc on Windows 10 and 11 Home

The local Group Policy editor console (gpedit.msc) is missing from Home and Single Language editions of Windows. If you try to open the local GPO console, an error occurs:

Windows cannot find ‘gpedit.msc’. Make sure you’ve typed the name correctly, then try again.

On Windows 10 or 11 Home, there is an undocumented workaround to install the gpedit.msc editor from the built-in packages and manifests repository. Open Command Prompt (cmd.exe) as an administrator and run the following two commands:

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")

DISM will install the ClientTools and ClientExtensions servicing packages from the internal Windows store.

Now you can open and use the gpedit.msc console in the Windows Home 10 or 11 editions.

How to Apply Local Group Policy on Windows Home

However, once the local Group Policy has been modified, the new settings are not immediately applied to the registry as they are in the Pro/Enterprise edition. Neither the gpupdate /force command nor a restart of the computer will help you to apply the Group Policy setting that you have set. This is because Windows Home Edition doesn’t have a GPO handler that applies the settings from the registry.pol file to the registry. For GPOs to be applied automatically, you will need to upgrade your edition of Windows from Home to Pro, but this is not always possible.

Fortunately, there is a workaround to apply GPO settings in Windows Home using a third-party Policy Plus tool (https://github.com/Fleex255/PolicyPlus). Policy Plus is an alternative GPO editor for Windows. It allows to edit local GPO settings without using the gpedit snap-in.

To apply new local GPO settings from the POL files, close the gpedit.msc MMC snap-in and select File -> Save Policy in Policy Plus.

A message should appear:

User policies: saved to disk and applied diff to Registry.Computer policies: saved to disk and applied diff to Registry.

To centrally manage Group Policy in an Active Directory domain environment, the Group Policy Management Console (gpmc.msc) is used instead of gpedit.