You set twenty policies by hand on one PC — USB blocked, logon rules fixed, templates tuned. Now the same settings must land on every other machine, and there is no domain to push them. This guide covers the complete copy method, from the golden PC to a verified import, and says plainly where the method stops working.
This is the exact problem the video starts from: no domain, 100 systems, and a company rule — block USB on every PC — that used to mean opening Group Policy on each machine by hand. The way out is simple in shape: perfect the settings once on one golden PC, back that Local Group Policy up, carry the backup to the other PCs, and import it. The video does it with the creator's own GPO Transfer Tool script; Microsoft's free LGPO utility does the same job and is covered in the same flow below — so you can follow whichever route you have in hand.
Every copy is only as good as its source. Pick one healthy PC, open gpedit.msc and set all the policies your office needs — the video's example is blocking USB storage, alongside logon policies and Administrative Templates. Test the machine like a normal user for a day: print, log in, plug things in. A wrong setting copied to 100 PCs is 100 times the cleanup, so the golden PC earns its name by being boring and correct before anything is exported.
In the video, a small script the creator built — the GPO Transfer Tool — wraps the whole backup and restore into a couple of clicks: run it on the golden PC to back the Local Group Policy up, carry the output to the next PC, run it there to import. The tool link is in the video description; get it from there, not from a random re-upload, because policy tools run with administrator rights and a tampered copy would be a serious problem. Under the hood it is doing exactly what the manual route in the next section does — moving the local policy store from one machine to another.
Microsoft ships the same capability in LGPO.exe, part of the free Security Compliance Toolkit from Microsoft's download site. On the golden PC, run it as administrator to create a backup; on each target PC, run it again to apply that backup. No server, no domain, no licence. LGPO also parses the backup into readable text, which is useful later when you want to check what a backup actually contains before trusting it.
LGPO.exeLGPO.exe /b C:\GPO-Backup /n "Office Golden PC"LGPO.exe /g C:\GPO-Backup\{backup-folder}gpupdate /force, then verify (section 5)A local policy backup carries the Local GPO's Administrative Templates (the registry-based settings stored in Registry.pol files under C:\Windows\System32\GroupPolicy and GroupPolicyUsers), plus security settings and policy scripts when they are part of that local policy. That covers the settings most offices copy: USB and device restrictions, Windows Update behaviour, password and lockout rules in local security policy, logon banners, Control Panel and Explorer restrictions. What it does not magically move is covered honestly in section 6 — read it before promising anyone a perfect clone.
After importing, prove the settings landed. Run gpupdate /force, then gpresult /h C:\gp-report.html and open the report: the applied policies are listed with their winning source. Spot-check two or three signature settings by hand — try the USB drive you just blocked. Roll through the fleet in small batches (5–10 PCs), verify, then continue. The five minutes of checking per batch is what separates a rollout from a rumour.
Three limits are real and no tool removes them. First: a workgroup copy is a snapshot, not a subscription — change a policy later and you must re-export and re-import everywhere; nothing syncs on its own. Second: settings tied to a specific user account, machine name or path travel badly and need a human look. Third: local policy has no targeting — every PC gets everything, unlike a domain where different OUs can get different policies. If your office is outgrowing those limits, that is the honest argument for a domain — this method buys you order today, not a management platform forever.
See the policy backup leave one PC and land on the next — the complete transfer, done live.
▶️ Watch Full VideoNo. That is the entire point of the method: it works on Local Group Policy between ordinary workgroup PCs. A domain gives you central links, targeting and automatic refresh, but the backup-and-import copy itself needs nothing more than administrator access on each PC.
Yes, LGPO.exe is a free Microsoft utility inside the Security Compliance Toolkit. Download it only from Microsoft's own site or the toolkit package — policy tools run as administrator, so copies from file-sharing sites are a risk you should never take.
Mostly yes: the local policy format is shared, and ordinary Administrative Template settings apply on both. Settings that only exist in one Windows version are simply ignored by the other. Still test the backup on one PC of each version before you roll it across the fleet.