In Windows, the Group Policy Editor is used to manage and change Group Policy Settings. However, the management console is not present in the Windows 11 Home edition, as it was in previous versions. Most customers are forced to upgrade to Windows Pro or Enterprise just to gain access to the Group Policy Editor.
In this article I am going to provide some solutions that you can use to open, activate or install Group Policy Editor on Windows 11 Home without having to upgrade.
Also, if you are unable to install Group Policy Editor in Windows 11 Home for some reason, there are a number of third-party tools that can help you. Methods for both are listed in the sections below.
Also read: How to Enable Group Policy Editor in Windows 10 Home Edition
Why Do We Need a Group Policy Editor?
If you haven’t heard of Group Policy Editor, chances are you don’t need it and all is well. However, the Group Policy Editor has a very useful moment, especially for network management.
The Group Policy Editor allows users to set access and restrictions for specific programs, applications, or websites. Another good reason to use the Group Policy Editor is that it can be used to set Group Policy on both local and network systems.
You may not need to download Group Policy Editor if your computer is a standalone device and is not connected to any network. But, there’s nothing wrong with having a Group Policy Editor just in case one day you need it.
How to Enable Group Policy Editor in Windows 11 Home Edition By Installing PolicyPlus
How to enable Group Policy Editor in Windows 11 Home Edition by installing PolicyPlus:
1. Download Policy Plus (github)
from here. Scroll down and click Download the latest build under the Downloads section.
2. Next, navigate to the folder where the downloaded file is stored, and
double click on.
3. Window Windows protected your PC will appear, stating the risk of running the application. Click More Info under a warning to continue. click Run anyway to launch the application. Also, click
Yes at the UAC prompt that appears next.
4. The Policy Plus console will now launch. It is similar to the Group Policy Editor in terms of the interface, but there is a better looking organization in the left navigation pane. This makes it a little easier to work with. Familiarizing yourself with the console and understanding the location of each policy will take an hour or two in Policy Plus.
How to Enable Group Policy Editor in Windows 11 Home Edition With Batch File
Batch files execute a series of commands from the command line. It’s basically a text file with a lot of commands that need to be executed. The name Batch File comes from the idea that it groups or combines various commands which would otherwise require separate execution. Batch files have a .bat extension.
Then, how to create a batch file to install Group Policy Editor in Windows 11 Home Edition.
1. First, press the Combination button Windows+S to launch the menu Search. Type Notepad in the text field, and click the relevant search result to launch Notepad.
2. After Notepad opens, next copy and paste set the following command in Notepad.
@echo off
>nul 2>&1 “%SYSTEMROOT%system32cacls.exe” “%SYSTEMROOT%system32configsystem”
REM –> If error flag set, we do not have admin.
if ‘%errorlevel%’ NEQ ‘0’ (
echo Requesting administrative privileges…
goto UACPrompt
) else ( goto gotAdmin )
:UACPromp
echo Set UAC = CreateObject^(“Shell.Application”^) > “%temp%getadmin.vbs”
echo UAC.ShellExecute “%~s0”, “”, “”, “runas”, 1 >> “%temp%getadmin.vbs”
“%temp%getadmin.vbs”
exit /B
:gotAdmin
if exist “%temp%getadmin.vbs” ( del “%temp%getadmin.vbs” )
pushd “%CD%”
CD /D “%~dp0”
pushd “%~dp0”
dir /b %SystemRoot%servicingPackagesMicrosoft-Windows-GroupPolicy-ClientExtensions-Package~3*.mum >List.txt
dir /b %SystemRoot%servicingPackagesMicrosoft-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%servicingPackages%%i”
pause
3. Then, click menu File in the upper-left corner of Notepad.
4. Select Save from the list of options to save the file. You can also press
CTRL+S to save it.
5. In the window Save file as that appears, navigate to Desktop to save it on the home screen. Then name it Group Policy Editor Installer.bat in the File Name and click Save in the below section.
6. After saving the file, open the desktop screen. Right click on the Group Policy Editor Installer.bat file saved, and select Run as administrator
from the context menu. Click Yes on the UAC (User Account Control) prompt that appears.
7. This will launch the Command Prompt. Here, you can see the running installation process. After the installation process is complete, you will see the operation completed successfully at the end. That’s when you can close the window.
8. Once done, restart computer for the latest changes to take effect.
You can now open the Group Policy Editor from the Run command as discussed earlier without Windows making any errors.
With these two ways, you can easily install and access Group Policy Editor on your Windows 11 Home edition. You can also search for other cool tutorials about Windows 11 OS by visiting the category
Windows. Goodbye and thank you for visiting.
