How do you disable Group Policy

Hi all, I've finally decided to post my own thread as I've been through all the other threads and they don't work.

I'm trying to disable The group policy setting on my XP computer as I believe it is the source to the problems that I am having trying to set up a local network with my flat mates.

When I go to firewall settings at the top it says;
"For your security, some setting are controlled by group policy" and the radio
buttons underneath are greyed out.

I've been working on this problem for a while and have tried a few techniques so far, the main answer that I find is to do as follows;

[Start] [Run] [Regedit]
Registry Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System
[ In most cases, this registry key is not present and will need to be created ]
Modify/Create the Value Data Type(s) and Value Name(s) as detailed below.
Data Type: DWORD Value // Value Name: DisableGPO
Setting for Value Data: [0 = Default (Enabled) / 1 = Disabled]
Exit Registry and Reboot

I have tried this and the group policy still has control over the firewall. My account is the only account on the computer so is the administrator so I am pretty much baffled.

Any one have any ideas of anything I could try?

Thanks a lot, Alsweeet

You can here try restoring the settings back to make it work properly. There are chances that some modified are causing the problem. I am giving you a link below that has ample of information on dealing with the issue with gpo. You can simply use the below link to restore security settings of gpo and then test back. I am sure that will be enough for keeping gpo on default state.


How do I restore security settings to a known working state?

thanks mark but i had no luck with the linked tutorial,
the "secedit" commands had no effect in the command prompt for me.

any other suggestions?

The same is possible via registry editor. You can disable it completely. The process is bit complicated but really effective. The location of gpo in windows registry is HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\MMC\{8FC0B734-A0E1-11D1-A7D3-0000F87571E3}. You will need to here restrict the policy and then check back. While if you find the same more confusing you can simply check the link below.

Disable a Group Policy object link using GPMC

Hey man.

Long story short, out of desperation with this same problem, I found another forum entry where someone discovered the registry key that let him turn his firewall on and off, while the group policy 'greying-out' remained in effect. I figured if you deleted that registry key, control should return to the user....

So...

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SOFTWARE > Policies > Microsoft >

Then delete the entire folder entitled 'windows firewall'.

Fixed the problem for me so far. Unsure if there will be repurcussions, so only to be used as a last resort.

Cheers