Windows Group Policy – Hacks and Tricks
In Windows XP operating system if you change any Windows group policy setting it just apply it to Administrator account as well. Especially if you restrict some access to hard drive partition or Run Command it restrict for Administrator as well. That depends on the setting you apply is a user account policy or machine policy. Normally Machine policy will apply to all the users. You can control user account policies base on users. However, Windows XP dose not support domain users like Windows server versions so even user account policies will apply to all the users.
I am using a simple trick to solve this issue. Not 100% but it makes life easier. In the beginning I just mention to copy a shortcut of gpedit.msc to the desktop. Reason behind that is when you play with Windows group Policies it is very easy to hide or prevent access to your hard drives. You will notice it after you restart your machine. Now you do not have access to gpedit.msc.
You might have prevent access to “Run” as well.
Trick 1:
If you done something like above situation you can simply solve it by creating a shortcut manually.
Right click on the desktop and go to “new” and select “shortcut”. It will ask you to give a path. If you have prevent access to your hard drive then you will not able to select the path so just select some other target like Desktop and click “Finish”. Right click on the shortcut that you created and select properties and fill the details for gpedit.msc
Default Values
Target: C:\WINDOWS\system32\gpedit.msc
Start in: C:\WINDOWS\system32\
Click “Apply” and it will create a shortcut for gpedit.msc and now you will able to access gpedit.msc and change Group Policy
Trick 2:
Use Trick 1 and before you disable any Program or Hard Drive you can create a short cut in Desktop. It will allow you to access these programs while other uses do not have any access.
Example: Prevent Access to Computer Hard Drives
First create a short cut to the Drives you going to hide or prevent access.
Then open the gpedit.msc [Start > Run > (type) gpedit.msc > Enter]
In Group Policy > User Configuration > Administrative Template > Desktop > Enable the “Remove My Computer icon on the Desktop”
If you need specific driver to be hidden you can go to In Group Policy > User Configuration > Administrative Template > Windows Component > Windows Explorer > and select the specific drivers from “hide these specific drivers from My Computer”
If you prevent access for My Computer, shortcuts will not be working.
