Recovering a GPO from the Registry with Policy Plus

If the POL files become corrupted, as they did for one user, Group Policy tools may be unable to open them. In particular, Policy Plus will be unable to start. It is still possible to use Policy Plus to save the policy data from the Registry and incorporate it back into a POL file.

First, move the Registry.pol files out of the folder(s) corresponding to the affected section(s) in C:\Windows\System32\GroupPolicy. If you're not sure which sections are affected, do them both - it doesn't matter where; we're just making a backup in case you want to do something with the originals.

Policy Plus will now be able to launch; it will create a blank POL file to replace the ones we moved. Use File | Open Policy Resources to open the Local Registry for the affected section(s). Use Share | Export POL to gather the policy-relevant Registry branches into a POL file for each section. This works because even though the POL is damaged, the Registry settings contained therein are likely still safe in the Registry. Make sure to save different POL files if you're doing both sections.

Use File | Open Policy Resources again to open the Local GPO. Use Share | Import POL for each affected section to bring in the appropriate POL file you created just now. Then you can use File | Save Policies to commit the newly restored GPO POLs.