Add Group Policy Editor to Control Panel - Quick Guide

Adding Group Policy Editor to the Control Panel

Frequent users of the Group Policy Editor may have noticed its absence from the standard Control Panel display. This differs from other system tools readily available to users. After extensive investigation involving registry modifications, a solution has been identified.

Directly creating this registry modification through regedit.exe is not possible due to limitations in adding a default item of type REG_EXPAND_SZ. Therefore, a pre-configured registry hack file has been created for ease of implementation.

It’s important to note that this modification is not compatible with the Home editions of either Windows Vista or Windows XP, as these versions do not include the Group Policy Editor.

Windows Vista

Following installation, the newly added item can be located by first selecting “Additional Options” within the Control Panel interface. The Group Policy Editor will then appear within the presented list.

Windows XP

To view the icon in Windows XP, users must switch to Classic View. This change in display settings is necessary for the icon to become visible.

Once Classic View is enabled, the icon will be displayed within the list of available icons.

Installation Process

The installation is straightforward. Simply download and extract the archive, then double-click the AddGroupPolicyToControlPanel.reg file to integrate the icon.

A corresponding registry script is also provided to remove the added item. This can be downloaded as the “AddGroupPolicyToControlPanel Registry Hack”.