Not true. Opening Group Policy during the OOBE

As the subject says, the below is not true.

I have tested this with a spare pc running Windows 11 Pro on physical pc, and was able to open GPEDIT just by using the Command Prompt using Shift F10 right when I reached the Lets Connect to a Network.

I was able to set policies for the Windows Updates only using GPEDIT, and after that, once booted to the desktop those Windows Updates policies were actually applied.


Has anyone tried to do this?

I know there are tools to automate the Group Policy settings during the installation but just wondering because the GPEDIT interface is more useful to me as I don't really have much policies settings that I would need.

GPedit does not work in OOBE because at that point windows is not fully loaded, meaning the MMC architecture which GP requires is not loaded nor have User Profiles and local registry hives been generated yet.

glasskuter said:

GPedit does not work in OOBE because at that point windows is not fully loaded, meaning the MMC architecture which GP requires is not loaded nor have User Profiles and local registry hives been generated yet.

Click to expand...

Windows is mostly provisioned (done installing) by the time it reaches OOBE. It's a working, live system. What it lacks is final customizations like an user-picked hostname or the identity of the primary user. You can use an unattended file to skip OOBE.

In fact, Windows Update is running in the background because it's a live system. If you have wired access and DHCP works, it's already connected online. If you have a WiFi network, then you may have instruct OOBE which SSID and password to use.

OOBE runs under the SYSTEM profile, which is why if you open a CMD window with Shift F10, you have Admin rights. Thus we don't need individual users to be created to run any Windows tools.

If you want to absolutely block Windows Update (because you have a wired connection), then a policy file or the equivalent reg changes should be present on the system by the time of the "specialize" install pass. This is the only guaranteed solution, because WU is always running in the background.

I guess AI was wrong or hallucinating

Anyways, thank you for the replies.