Rerun the gpresult command to generate a new report (make sure to change the name of your output file so you don’t overwrite it!).Use the ProcMon program to monitor which registry settings are applied when you change a group policy.Review it to see which policies are applied.Generate a Group Policy report using the gpresult command.You can download it for free here: įinally, you need to get comfortable with the DOS command gpresult. In addition, the Sys Internals ProcMon (Process Monitor) program is helpful for identifying which registry settings a Group Policy object modifies. You can download Notepad++ for free here: I use the free Notepad++ with its Compare plugin for this but you can also use the Windows 10 (Anniversary edition 🙂 ) Bash diff command, or Winmerge, etc.

To get started, you will need software that allows you to compare two text or html files (I prefer working with HTML as it’s easier to read, but it can be a bit more tricky to understand the file differences). Luckily through the use of a few free programs and a Windows built-in tool, you can make sense out of the Group Policies applied to a computer. Whether you are a Sys Admin or a user, troubleshooting Windows Group Policy on a domain connected client PC can be difficult.

Use notepad++ compare plugin