How to Apply Group Policy Only to Non-administrators in Windows

Group Policy makes it easier to configure some settings in Windows. When changing a specific policy (depending on the computer or user configuration), it will be applied to any computer and user.

However, if you want to apply some specific policies such as disk access restrictions, how to do for non-administrators? You will show you how to apply group policy to non-system administrators.

How to apply group policy to non-administrators

Because the Group Policy Editor normally doesn't allow you to apply policies only to a specific user group, we need to create a group policy snap-in on the machine using MMC (Microsoft Management Console).

Step 1 . Press the Windows + R key, type mmc and click the OK button to open the Microsoft Management Console. You can also search mmc on the Start menu.

Step 2 . In the Microsoft Management Console window, go to File in the top navigation bar and select the Add / Remove Snap-in option .

Step 3 . This will open the Add or Remove Snap-ins window. Here, you need to find the Group Policy Object Editor in the left pane, select it and click the Add button.

Step 4 . Now we need to select all non-admin accounts. In the Group Policy tutorial, click Browse .

Step 5 . Access the Users tab, select Non-Administrators from the Local Users and Groups list and click the OK button.

Step 6. On the screen, click the Finish button to save the changes.

Step 7 . You have just completed adding a snap-in with custom settings. Now we need to save this snap-in for later use if desired. To save, go to File and select the Save As option.

Step 8 . Go to where you want to save the snap-in, name the snap-in, make sure in the Save as type field: select Microsoft Management Console Files (*.msc) and click the Save button. In this example, we will save the MSC file in the C drive root directory.

Step 9 . You can now use the snap-in you just created to apply group policy settings to all users except administrators by double-clicking on the file.

Step 10 . This will open the snap-in inside the MMC. Like the regular Group Policy Editor, find the policy and double-click it to change the policy settings. For instance,, if you do not want someone who is not an administrator to access a specific drive on your system, you need to change the option to Hide these specified drives on My Computer .

You can follow the same steps to apply policy settings to a specific user. Instead of selecting a group, simply select a specific user in Step 5.

I wish you all success!