Group Policy Editor: What's this? General concepts and possibilities

Quite often, many users working on computer terminals without administrator rights are faced with the problem that some action is disabled by the administrator or simply prohibited. For such prohibitions, the Group Policy Editor is used. What this is and how to work with it, we now look.

What is Group Policy Editor?

By itself, the editor is a fairly complex and powerful tool that allows you to fine-tune the system, enable or disable its individual components, set permissions and prohibitions for users to use individual Windows components, install or run applications, and so on.

It should also be taken into account that there are two types of this tool: the local group policy editor (for this terminal) and the toolkit for the group policy of the directory service (Active Directory is used by sites, domains, network terminals, etc.).

In addition, you must be aware that such functions are provided in the same Windows 7 or 8 systems exclusively versions of Ultimate, Professional and Enterprise. In home versions such as Home or Starter, this element is not installed initially, so it's not even worth trying. A little later, we'll look at how to enable the Group Policy Editor in Windows home builds. In the meantime, let's look at the basic functions of this tool.

Starting the editor

First, consider the question of how to access the Local Group Policy editor. The simplest way is to use the command line or the "Run" menu (Win + R). The Group Policy Editor (Windows 8 or 7) is called by the gpedit.msc command.

Now let's look at the basic settings and figure out what they are intended for.

Basic Settings and Settings

In the left window of the editor you can immediately see two main sections. The first concerns the computer system as a whole. Here you can edit all the parameters that apply to the system, regardless of which user is currently working on the terminal. In the second section there are settings, so to speak, tied to each specific user.

In this case (of course, if you log in as an administrator) you can set bans and permissions for other users to perform certain actions.

For example, you need to disable, say, editing the registry so that an inexperienced user does not let God get there and does not delete an important key or entry that could affect the performance of the entire "operating system." To do this, use the Administrative Templates section of the user configuration, where you select the appropriate item to deny access to the registry editing tools. When you enter the subsection menu, simply tick the "Enabled" option.

Now the user at the command of regedit will receive a message stating that editing the registry was prohibited by the administrator. However, this applies to any user actions and existing restrictions or permissions.

Computer configuration settings are also interesting. For example, you can easily change, omit, the action that is performed when you press Ctrl + Alt + Del, or something else. In other words, applying the settings of the editor, you can configure the system, as they say, for you. For this there are quite a lot of powerful tools.

Installing and enabling the Group Policy Editor in Windows Home versions (7, 8)

Now a few words about how you can use the Group Policy Editor in Windows Home and Starter versions. To do this, you just need to download the installation distribution from the Internet and install this component. The installation of problems does not cause, since it is a standard process. Upon completion, you will need to reboot the computer system. But that is not all.

Where is the Local Group Policy Editor

Here we come to the question of the location of the file responsible for launching the editor. In the standard version for systems with 32-bit architecture, the startup file is located in the System32 system folder in the Windows root directory.

In 64-bit versions of the same "seven" or "eight" after installing the file with the help of the above utility, its location will be changed to the SysWOW64 folder (where all the command files called through the "Run" menu are located).

So, if immediately after installing and rebooting the system, enter the command to call the editor, it can not work. The system will simply display a message that the gpedit.msc file is not found. Nothing wrong. The way out of this situation is simple enough. You just need to copy the required file to the System32 folder, that's all.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it remains to add that the editor of group politics is a powerful and serious tool. Therefore, at least without any initial knowledge to change the parameters that are there is not recommended, or else, what's good, the whole system will "fly out". Well, an experienced user, using the system registry and the Group Policy settings, can go a long way, especially since the editor and the registry itself are interrelated, up to the complete duplication of some settings and parameters.