Stubbo said:
Does anyone know of a freeware equivalent of the Group Policy Editor
that is available on the Professional and higher editions for Windows
7 Home Edition?
Sure: regedit. All group policies are merely entries in the registry.
Changing their values changes them in the registry. That's why users
that can logon under admin privilegs (on the local computer or as an
admin on their host when in a domain) can undo any policies that were
established when they logged in.
Rather than provide a GUI that front-ends the registry editor (showing
lists of options rather than a database of settings), you could use
regedit.exe but then you'd have to know what keys and data items were
used for which tweaks and policies. Microsoft came up with a
spreadsheet to show you those settings. So instead of using gpedit.msc,
you could use regedit.exe and look at the spreadsheet to see where you
modify the registry for those options. There are 3 tabs: Instructions,
Administrative Template (what you would see listed in GPedit), and
Security. The spreadsheet is at:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=18c90c80-8b0a-4906-a4f5-ff24cc2030fb
There are lots of tweakers that do the same thing: they provide a GUI
displaying a list of option that change the registry settings so you
don't have to dig using regedit. Many tweakers are geared towards end
users or specific aspect of a particular version or edition of Windows.
You didn't mention what you're looking for but then I'd just be doing
the Google searching for you that you can do.
