[Windows] Reset group policy to default through command line

These are the three magic lines that will reset the windows group policy from your windows machine. This does not delete any user data but there are chances that some windows settings may be reset to default (That’s what we are trying to do right?) for e.g. windows update.

This may help you for cases like

  • Missing Network adapters from Network connection
  • When you screw up your group policies while experimenting windows settings on it.
  • Some installations of windows 8 won’t let you change windows update settings and report that “Some settings are managed by your system administrator”

Below are the magical lines:

1. Start cmd and run it as administrator
2. And then execute below lines one by one

RD /S /Q "%WinDir%\System32\GroupPolicyUsers"
RD /S /Q "%WinDir%\System32\GroupPolicy"
gpupdate /force

3. After executing above commands, in some instances you might have to restart your computer. It’s better to restart your machine.

Hope this helps.