Google Chrome: This setting is enforced by your administrator

Question

I recently updated my Chrome browser and noticed something very weird. Many fields in the Settings have been disabled. "This setting is enforced by your administrator" appears next to many fields including my saved passwords section (which I need to look up one my old passwords for a website).

Anyway, I've googled this problem on the internet many times, and I haven't been able to find a viable solution.

How do I get rid of this admin lock?

p.s. I'm connected to Chrome with my Google account.

Solution 1

I found a better solution on the Chrome product forums by a user called Gary. The original thread is here.

Navigate to C:\Windows\System32\GroupPolicy

Open each subdirectory there and change the *.pol files to *.sav, E.g. registry.pol becomes registry.sav.

Hit Windows-Key + R, type the following in the box and hit enter

reg delete HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Google\Chrome

In the command promt window that opens type: Yes and press Enter.

Restart Google Chrome and check whether you can change the search engine.

Solution 2

Any one on windows 10 Pro , this is for you guys --

1. Open CMD in administrator mode .

2. Paste below code-

   RD /S /Q "%WinDir%\System32\GroupPolicyUsers" 
   RD /S /Q "%WinDir%\System32\GroupPolicy" 
   gpupdate /force
   

3. After few seconds you will see this -

   User Policy update has completed successfully.
   Computer Policy update has completed successfully.
   

4. Now you can change your search engine to whatever you want.

Thank you

Solution 3

Try to use this solution:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome

Run regedit, Delete the key, then restart Chrome.

Solution 4

Actually, I've got a bit more precise solution, which might be useful if you don't want to change/delete anything else.

Run regedit, and at the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome key you should have a PasswordManagerEnabled property, which probably is set to 0.

Simply change it to 1.

Edit: I tried it on some other computer and it didn't want to work, so I rebooted my computer, made sure Chrome is closed, then changed it in the registry, and finally it worked. So make sure Chrome is closed when you do this.

Solution 5

for me the default search in chrome was locked by smartsputnik.ru. and deleting all the entries in registry and also resetting and reinstalling chrome did not helped . except the below solution.

1. Delete related key from the registry entry- Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACCHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome
2. Delete file - C:\Windows\System32\GroupPolicy\Machine\registry.pol
3. Restart computer and the problem will be solved

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Comments

[Dayton Wang]

Running Regedit then going to HKEY_Currnt_user\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome. Try to delete everything you could. Hope it helps.

[Yu-Sen Han]

how to remove it in Mac?

[Eel Lee]

Well, your answer deletes every single setting set there, and by the way happens to unlock saving passwords. I have posted answer which contains changing the exact key we want, you might want to check it out.

[Mohammad Najar]

In that location, I only see (Default) and DnsPrefetchingEnabled

[Eel Lee]

Can you provide me a screenshot? It would be much easier that way :) And remember I meant property, not directory.

[Eel Lee]

@MohammadNajar ...and?

[urfusion]

I have deleted all the keys and install that again but still facing the same issue

[TondaCZE]

I have a similar problem, getting the same "This setting is enforced by your administrator" message (I would even call it error message, is this a handle for malware makers or what?). Except I can't change my omnibox search engine. I deleted all the registry entries mentioned in the solution but it didn't help. I also submitted the issue to the Chrome forum here: productforums.google.com/forum/…

[Brandon G]

This isn't an acceptable solution if it only applies to one OS

[Mohammad Najar]

I did what you mentioned. Restarted my Chrome and still see the admin locks. Do I need to reboot my box for it to take effect?

[Eel Lee]

@MohammadNajar Yes, it might be the problem.

[Mohammad Najar]

unfortunately the restart still didn't resolve it :(

[Eel Lee]

@MohammadNajar I had similar problem on the other computer, and resolved it - check my edited answer.

[paul-2011]

Deleting all the GroupPolicy folder contents when the registry is already clean solves the problem. Thank you.

[Daniel Watrous]

This seems like it would overreach the goal. The answer from imanabidi suggests just a single .pol file.

[Daniel Watrous]

I didn't have to restart the computer, just Chrome.

[Moojjoo]

Mr. Obvious here, but if this is a company owned computer, I would not change this setting. Just Saying.

[Weekend]

Thanks, I was unable to change omnibox search engine, then make it by changing DefaultSearchProviderSearchURL (and DefaultSearchProviderKeyword DefaultSearchProviderName optional) in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome.

[Jay]

There needs to be a less aggressive way to do this, it's not good practice to delete the file on your work machine.

[Jay]

I was able to find the values under Current user HKey and not under LM, but upon changing them they keep getting reset back to zero after a reboot. I have admin rights & launched regedit with admin privileges. I also made sure Chrome is closed. any ideas?

[Raj Rao]

Worked on my windows 10 machine. this was the best answer as it was targeted at exactly the one thing that I wanted to fix - Chrome settings were not editable

[Sreekumar P]

will this delete all grouppolicies or only chrome's settings ?