How to Fix Group Policy Settings Resetting Automatically on Windows

It’s frustrating making changes on your PC only to have them reverted on the next restart, or right after you close a window. Case in point: Group Policy Settings, which some users have had trouble getting to stay set. If you’re one of them, then this article is here to help. We’ll be looking at how to troubleshoot Group Policy Settings resetting.

What Causes This Issue?

A common cause of Group Policy settings reverting is a domain or other organizational policy overriding your changes. If your machine is part of an office or organizational network, this might well be the reason. It isn’t the only one, however, and you could also be experiencing issues because of:

• Problems with administrator permissions.
• A corrupted or improperly configured Group Policy object (GPO).
• An issue with the Group Policy Client Service itself.

Group Policy Settings Resetting – Fixes to Try

Now that you know the possible causes, let’s look at how to fix this issue on your machine. We’ve got a few troubleshooters below:

Confirm Your Applied Group Policy

If you suspect a domain or organizational policy is overriding your changes, you can use the gpresult command to see which policies are actually being applied to your PC. Simply open Command Prompt as an administrator and enter “gpresult /h gp.html”. This creates an HTML report showing the resulting Group Policy settings and helps identify the GPO responsible for a setting. If your PC is managed by an organization, contact your IT department before doing this.

Check Your Group Policy Client Service

The Group Policy Client service applies Group Policy settings to your computer and users. If the service isn’t running, Group Policy settings may not be applied correctly. Here’s how:

Step 1. Open the Run dialog (Win + R), type “services.msc,” and press “Enter.”

Step 2. In the window that pops up, navigate down to the “Group Policy Client” service and check that it’s running.

Step 3. Double-click the service and check the “Startup type.” It should be set to “Automatic.” If not, change it to this and click “Apply” and “OK” to save the changes.

Manually Update the Group Policy

Refreshing Group Policy can ensure that the latest policy settings are applied. You’ll have to make the changes through Command Prompt. Here’s how:

Step 1. Open the Run dialog (Win + R), type “cmd,” and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to run Command Prompt as an administrator

Step 2. In Command Prompt, type “gpupdate /force” and hit “Enter.”

Step 3. Once the process is complete, restart your machine.

Step 4. If that doesn’t work, you can try resetting the local Group Policy settings. In Command Prompt, type:

“RD /S /Q “%WinDir%\System32\GroupPolicyUsers” && RD /S /Q “%WinDir%\System32\GroupPolicy”

and press “Enter.” Then type:

“gpupdate /force”

and press “Enter.” Note that this removes local Group Policy settings; it will not remove policies applied by an organization or domain.

Step 5. Again, let the process run, and restart afterwards.

Perform a Clean Boot

If you suspect third-party app or extension interference with your Group Policy, then making changes in Clean Boot can help confirm. Here’s what to do:

Step 1. Open the Run Dialog (Win + R) and type “msconfig” before hitting “Enter.”

Step 2. Click the “Services” tab.

Step 3. Check “Hide all Microsoft services” and disable third-party ones, as many as you like. If you aren’t sure which might be a problem, disable them all.

Step 4. Click the “Startup” tab and select “Open Task Manager.”

Step 5. In Task Manager, click the “Startup apps” tab, disable the enabled startup items, and close Task Manager.

Step 6. Back in System Configuration, click “OK.”

Step 7. Restart your machine.