How to Restore the Default Local Group Policy Settings on Windows 11 or 10

You could run into a variety of complications with your Local Group Policy Editor. I was attempting to modify a group policy the other day and met the error HRESULT E FAIL has been returned from a call to a COM component. I attempted a few simple remedies, but they did not resolve my issue. That is when I opted to restore the default values for my local group policy settings. Unsurprisingly, this resolved the issue immediately. Generally, the Local Group Policy Editor generates error messages when one or more policies become corrupted or when something critical becomes unavailable. In such circumstances, a simple reset resolves the issue without causing undue inconvenience.

There may be further instances when you have made numerous group policy modifications and have muddled things up and would like to restore everything to its original state. In this instance as well, a quick reset is the best course of action.

We will demonstrate in detail how to use an elevated command prompt to reset the local group policy settings to their default values in one go.

Please keep in mind that if you have already modified your local group policy settings, those modifications will be lost during the reset.

Local Group Policy Reset to Default

Step 1: Firstly, click on the Search icon on the taskbar.

Step 2: Now in the search bar, type in cmd and click on the Run as administrator option against Command Prompt to launch the command prompt in elevated mode.

 Step 3: When the command prompt window launches open, copy and paste the following command and hit the Enter key.

"RD /S /Q "%WinDir%\System32\GroupPolicyUsers" && RD /S /Q "%WinDir%\System32\GroupPolicy"

 Step 4: Next, copy and paste the following command into the command prompt and press Enter.

"gpupdate /force"

Please be patient while your policies are updated.

That is all there is to it. After the update is complete, you will see a notification stating that the Computer Policy update was successful. The modification to the User Policy was done successfully. Your Local Group Policy Editor is spanking new, just like it was the first time you used it!

This should resolve the most of your troubles with the Local Group Policy Editor.

Please let us know if you find the information beneficial in the comments area.