Group Policy reset in Windows Server 2012 R2

By using group policy settings, sometimes you may experience issues on servers and desktops, and there are some cases in which you have to reset the local policy of a server.

  • registry corruption
  • policy file corruption
  • just cannot update group policy and you want to give a try

How to do it (applies to Windows Server 2012 R2) *

  1. Run this command:
    secedit /configure /cfg %windir%\inf\defltbase.inf /db defltbase.sdb /verbose
  2. Delete the registry.pol file:
    del c:\windows\system32\grouppolicy\machine\registry.pol
  3. Restart the Server

In case you have issues with firewall configuration pushed by Group Policy you should delete the key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\WindowsFirewall

from the registry first.

Source 1

Source 2