How do disable Group Policy?

[Guest]

Ok, here's the story. I've been unsure about what security system that was
preventing my other connected computer to access this computer. Whether it
was Window's firewall or my Norton crap. I tried disabling both. After going
back to my Window's firewall settings, I see that I couldn't controll my
firewall. It was grayed out and at the top, it said, "For your security, some
settings are controlled by group policy."

I don't know how that message got there and I don't know how I couldn't set
my firewalls settings even if I AM the administrator.

My question therefore is, how do I remove group policy COMPLETELY? Anyway
possible, I want it GONE now that it has ruined my night in attempting to fix
this debacle. Please help!

Thank you,
Scott Heng

 

[Guest]

http://www.winguides.com/registry/display.php/1161/

 

[Steven L Umbach]

Is the computer XP Home or XP Pro and is it a member of an Active Directory
domain such as could be the case in a business? Unexplained Group Policy
restrictions usually are an indication of malware problems that attempt to
prevent you from accessing your firewall settings. In XP Pro you can access
Group Policy via gpedit.msc and then go to computer
configuration/administrative templates/network/network connections/windows
firewall/standard profile where you can view and edit the settings if you
are logged on as an administrator. If no settings are defined then they are
defined in the corresponding registry settings and you should attempt to set
corresponding settings to enabled or disabled as the case may be in order to
try and override the registry settings. There is not direct editing of Group
Policy in XP Home. In either case the registry key of interest is
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\WindowsFirewall and I would
simply delete the whole WindowsFirewall key and reboot the computer if
enties are found there that are causing undesired configuration.

Steve