How to change group policy via command line?

Question

I want to update group policy in windows server using command line. I don't want programatic way. I read this & this, and then tried delete registry keys based on the mapping of group policy and registry keys, but the group policy didn't got updated.

Specifically, I want to set Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Windows Update\Configure Automatic Updates to Not configured in group policy.

So, I ran following commands,

C:\Windows\system32>reg delete HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU /v ScheduledInstallTime /f
The operation completed successfully.

C:\Windows\system32>reg delete HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU /v ScheduledInstallDay /f
The operation completed successfully.

C:\Windows\system32>reg delete HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU /v NoAutoUpdate /f
The operation completed successfully.

C:\Windows\system32>reg delete HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU /v AUOptions /f
The operation completed successfully.

But after that the group policy wasn't updated. Do I need to run another command to propagate my registry changes to group policy? If yes, what is it? What am I missing?

I tried, gpupdate /force, it overrided my registry changes. I need converse of this.

Answer 1

How to change group policy from the command line? Voila:

LGPO.exe – Local Group Policy Object Utility, v1.0

Answer 2

For group policy objects in a domain, registry-based group policy settings can be configured from the command line using Powershell. If you are not running on a domain controller, the Group Policy Management Console must be installed.

See Group Policy Cmdlets in Windows PowerShell and in particular the Set-GPRegistryValue cmdlet.

You can of course run a Powershell command from the legacy command line, e.g.,

powershell get-gpregistryvalue -Name gpo-name -Key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU -ValueName AUOptions

As far as I know, there is no command-line solution for local group policy. For local group policy, see Glenn's answer.