Forum Home
Press F1
 
Thread ID: 68050 2006-04-15 12:34:00 Remove group policy Merts (10213) Press F1
Post ID Timestamp Content User
446534 2006-04-15 12:34:00 The girl next door complained that her laptop computer had become very slow and wouldn’t stay on line when she tried to connect to the internet. Although not a computer geek, I’m able to keep my own PC up to scratch and I offered to look into the matter.
The laptop is a Hewlett Packard Pavilion with a 1.1 GHz Intel Celeron processor, which she brought back home to NZ from Britain.
The internet connection was a case of incorrect settings and easily rectified.
The operating system is Windows XP home edition which hadn’t been updated with sp 1&2 and the Norton antivirus program had never been updated and was expired.

I expected a virus and replaced Norton antivirus with AVG free edition which promptly found 2 and after updating 3 more Trojan horses. After removal of these viruses, I installed Windows sp 1&2 and installed all the updates of Windows since sp 2, but now the Security Centre reports that it can’t switch on Windows firewall because of a group policy in place and to see my network administrator about that. However, the laptop, bought new at the time, has never been part of a network and the computer administrator is at present me.

My first question is now how do I get rid of that group policy. I tried to find a solution under Administrative Tools on the Control Panel but without success so far.
Can you please point me in the right direction?

My second question is would it be recommendable to fit extra memory to speed up the system? At present the laptop has a 256 Mb memory module shared with 32 Mb for graphics and there is a free slot for an additional (256 Mb) memory module.

Thanks beforehand for your help.
Merts (10213)
446535 2006-04-16 05:48:00 read this (www.mcse.ms)

some virus has probably turned the firewall off by editing the registry......
gibler (49)
446536 2006-04-16 06:03:00 Do this

1 . Click Start, Run and type Regedit . exe

2 . Navigate to the following locations:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Policies \ Microsoft \ WindowsFirewall

-and-

HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ SOFTWARE \ Policies \ Microsoft \ WindowsFirewall

3 . Backup and then delete the WindowsFirewall key .

4 . Close Regedit . exe and restart Windows .

XP Home doesnt have Group Policies, only Pro has . So, you'll have to delete the enty/entries in the registry . Not go thru Control Panel .
Speedy Gonzales (78)
446537 2006-05-19 01:01:00 To Speedy Conzales,

Thank you very much for your suggested actions for removal of the group policy. Sorry for the late reply, but the laptop was unavailable to me for a while to carry out the repair.
Yesterday, 18 May, I was back at it and the process went perfectly without hickups. Windows Firewall and the Security Centre are now fully operational.
I only found a firewall entry in the local machine key to delete, there was no firewall entry in the current user key.
All I had to do after restarting Windows was starting the Security Centre service in the Administative Tools on the Control Panel.
Again many thanks.

Regards,

Peter Merts
Merts (10213)
446538 2006-05-19 01:12:00 XP Home doesnt have Group Policies, only Pro has. So, you'll have to delete the enty/entries in the registry. Not go thru Control Panel.

Just for reference, all XP operating systems have Group Policy.

Click start, run and type gpedit.msc to edit group policy settings
Deimos (5715)
446539 2006-05-19 01:36:00 Just for reference, all XP operating systems have Group Policy .

Click start, run and type gpedit . msc to edit group policy settings
Not true . Windows XP Home does not have Group Policies like the Pro version .

One link to back that up: . wikipedia . org/wiki/Windows_XP" target="_blank">en . wikipedia . org

More links at Google ( . google . com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=group+edit+windows+xp+home&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8" target="_blank">www . google . com) .
FoxyMX (5)
446540 2006-05-19 01:38:00 And while I am here, may I commend Merts for posting excellent feedback on his results. It would be great if more people were like him. :cool: FoxyMX (5)
446541 2006-05-19 02:14:00 Not true . Windows XP Home does not have Group Policies like the Pro version .

One link to back that up: . wikipedia . org/wiki/Windows_XP" target="_blank">en . wikipedia . org

More links at Google ( . google . com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=group+edit+windows+xp+home&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8" target="_blank">www . google . com) .

Interesting, my XP exam didn't mention anything about it . :confused:
Deimos (5715)
446542 2006-05-19 02:33:00 Well it just goes to show that you can't beat hands-on experience:


Windows cannot find 'gpedit.msc'. Make sure you typed the name correctly, and then try again..... etc.
FoxyMX (5)
1