How to Install Group Policy Editor in Windows 11 Home

If you are using the Windows 11 Home operating system on your computer, you may have noticed that the Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc) is missing. This is because gpedit.msc is not natively pre-installed on Windows Home.

But, you can still install or enable the Group Policy Editor. You can also try using an alternative application to the Group Policy Editor.

Group Policy in Windows (GPO) is an advanced way to configure system and user settings for a local computer or for a PC on a network. You can use Group Policy to configure almost the entire operating system, including software, network settings, and security policies.

While using the computer, users have to solve various problems or change OS settings. In many cases, different options are offered using the Local Group Policy Editor.

Gpedit.msc Not Found Windows 11 Home

When you try to run Group Policies, you will see a message that gpedit.msc was not found in Windows 11 Home because this system component is missing from the computer.

Windows 11 Home is for personal use, so gpedit.msc will not be available to you. And this is a serious disadvantage of the home version, because managing the group policy settings of the local computer helps to configure the OS.

Because of this, many users of home versions of Windows have to use the registry editor to make some changes to the system. But instead of the Windows Registry, you can tweak various Windows 11 settings through the Group Policy Editor.

It is much easier to configure the system with the Local Group Policy Editor than with the Registry Editor. Therefore, many users need to install the Group Policy Editor on Windows 11 Home Edition.

This guide will show you how to install the Local Group Policy Editor in Windows 11 Home in several ways. We use system tools and an alternative that adds the necessary functionality using a third-party application. These methods will also work on older versions of the operating system: Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 8, Windows 7.

Please note that after enabling gpedit.msc Windows 11 Home, not all policies will work, because some policies are tightly tied to older versions of Windows: Professional, Enterprise and Education.

How to Enable the Group Policy Editor Using a Batch BAT File

The console file gpedit.msc is located in the folder along the path: C:\Windows\System32. If you check this folder in Windows 11 Home, you will find other utilities there, like gpupdate, gpresults, but gpedit.msc won’t be there.

By default, DISM in Windows is used to repair a Windows image or to modify Windows installation media files. But you can also use it to enable the Group Policy Editor.

You will need to create a Batch BAT file to add the Local Group Policy Editor to Windows Home.

Follow this instruction:

1. Open Notepad on your computer.
2. Copy this content to the application window:

@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

3. Enter the “File” menu, and select “Save As” from the context menu.
4. In the “Save as” window, in the “File type:” field, select “All files”, in the “File name:” field, enter an arbitrary name with the “*.bat” extension, for example, “gpedit-enable.bat”.
5. Click on the “Save” button and then close Notepad.
6. Run this batch file by right clicking on it as administrator.
7. The command prompt window installs the Group Policy packages.
8. After successful completion of the operation, press any key.
9. Now press the “Win” + “R” keys.
10. In the Run dialog box, type “gpedit.msc” and click OK.
11. The Local Group Policy Editor window will open on the desktop in the home version of the Windows operating system.

If it doesn’t work right away, restart your computer.

Now you can also use Group Policies in Windows 10 Home without having to constantly make changes to the system registry.

You can download a ZIP archive with a ready-made BAT file to your computer, which does not need to be run as an administrator, from this link .

Enabling Group Policy via Command Line

A similar operation can be performed in Windows 11 Home using the command line. We will need to execute two commands using this system tool.

Do the following:

1. In the Windows search box, type “CMD”.
2. Run command prompt as administrator.
3. In the command line interpreter window, execute this command by pressing the “Enter” key:

FOR %F IN ("%SystemRoot%\servicing\Packages\Microsoft-Windows-GroupPolicy-ClientTools-Package~*.mum") DO (DISM /Online /NoRestart /Add-Package:"%F")

4. Then enter and run the following command:

FOR %F IN ("%SystemRoot%\servicing\Packages\Microsoft-Windows-GroupPolicy-ClientExtensions-Package~*.mum") DO (DISM /Online /NoRestart /Add-Package:"%F")

5. Close the command prompt window after the operation is complete.
6. Open the Local Group Policy Editor on your computer.

How to enable the Local Group Policy Editor in Policy Plus

Policy Plus is a portable (portable) application that adds Local Group Policy Editor functionality to all versions and editions of Windows, including Windows 11, Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows Server.

The Policy Plus application requires the operating system to run .NET Framework 4.5 or later.

Do the following:

1. Download Policy Plus from the official GitHub page: https://github.com/Fleex255/PolicyPlus/releases . Select the latest release and then download the “PolicyPlus.exe” file to your PC.
2. Run the executable “PolicyPlus.exe” as an administrator.
3. In the welcome window, click on the “Yes” button
4. In the “Acquire ADMX Files” window that opens, click on the “Begin” button.
5. After downloading the administrative template files, click on the “Yes” button to open the application.

The Policy Plus interface is very similar to the standard local group policy editor. You can select “Computer”, “User or computer” or “User” from the drop-down menu in the upper left corner. All other features are very similar to the default editor.

Enabling or disabling local group policy settings occurs in windows similar to the standard system tool.

The next time you need to change Windows settings, run the Policy Plus application file on your computer again.

Article Conclusions

In the Windows operating system, many settings are much more convenient to do using the Local Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc) than to manually make changes to the registry. Windows 11 Home does not include Group Policies, so users cannot use this console to change system settings. You can use several methods to help you add group policies to Windows 11 Home.