We offer a number of tips for which we asked you to edit a GPO. Although we always give you the exact path, if you venture out on your own, you may need to look for a particular font. Here's how you can to search for a group policy for a specific GPO in Windows 10 or Server editions.
How to find a group policy
The Group Policy Editor allows you to modify policies that can restrict, enable, or disable features in Windows. There are thousands of strategies and if you do not know how to search, it's almost impossible to find anything.
There are several ways to search for a Grop policy object. You can follow one of these methods:
- Using the Group Policy filter on the computer
- Search an Online Group Policy
- NIT-GPOS search tool
- Offline Group Policy Sheet.
You can use any of these methods, but our recommendation remains the first because it is more up-to-date and reliable.
1) Search using the Group Policy filter
If you think, why are we talking about it? In fact, unlike the Registry Editor, which offers a direct search, there is no search in the Group Policy Editor. You can not press Ctrl + F to begin typing and searching for what you are looking for. Instead, Group Policy offers filters.
- Open the Group Policy Editor with the help of gpedit.msc in the prompt.
- The filter is available only for Administrative Templates under User Configuration and Computer Configuration.
- Select it, and then click View> Filter Options.
- It will open a filter window that has a ton of options.
- Type of policy settings: Managed, configured, and commented.
- Check the box that says Enable keyword filters
- The last filter is the Requirements filter, which is useful if you are looking for a strategy for a particular platform, such as Windows 10, and so on.
- Click OK, and then click the Filter icon.
- Click All Settings to have a better view of the policies.
Whenever you want to disable the filter, click the icon again to see all the strategies.
The implementation of the use of the filter is better than the search. The implementation is such that the filter retains the last keyword that you used, which makes it user friendly.
2) Search an Online Group Policy
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Group Policy Search is an official, online Microsoft tool that allows you to search for Microsoft Active Directory Group Policy settings.
Once on the website, you can use the search box or filtering method to search for the policy. The advantage of using this tool is that it is more comfortable than the built-in tool. Once you have the full path, you can navigate directly into the Group Policy Editor and make the changes.
This is also useful when you do not have access to GPE and want to know what strategy is useful and what operating system it is supported on.
3) NIT-GPOSearch tool
<img class = "ezlazyload aligncenter large size wp-image-195450″ alt=”NIT-GPOS search tool” width=”600″ height=”441″ sizes=”(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px” src=”https://thewindowsclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/NIT-GPOSearch-Tool-600×441.png” srcset=”https://thewindowsclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/NIT-GPOSearch-Tool.png 600w, https://thewindowsclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/NIT-GPOSearch-Tool-150×110.png 150w, https://thewindowsclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/NIT-GPOSearch-Tool-400×294.png 400w”/>
It's a free tool that has a huge advantage. It can also display registry keys for a policy. Each group policy has a registry entry, which is extremely useful for those who need to know both the policy and its registry entry.
Once the software is installed, launch it from the application menu. It will offer you a search box in which you can enter the description of the policy. It will look for the name of the policy in C: Windows Policy Definitions. All policies are saved in this folder in the format admx, adml.
When you hover over each of them, a preview will give you more details about the policy. Overall, it's a great solution, but be aware that reading is slow, so give it a little time.
4) Offline Group Policy Sheet
Finally, there is an entirely offline way to search for a group policy. But we do not think it's reliable, you'll have to keep it up to date.
Microsoft provides a Group Policy setting reference for Windows and Windows Server. You can download the Excel sheet and use it.
We hope you can now search for GPOs much faster than ever before.